


A Stark of Winterfell

by Ralph_E_Silvering



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst and Romance, F/M, Family, Gen, Incest, Jon Snow is King in the North, Jon Snow is a Stark, Jon Snow knows nothing, POV Arya Stark, POV Daenerys, POV Jaime Lannister, POV Tyrion Lannister, Redemption, Sansa Stark is Queen in the North, Tragic Romance, Tyrion just needs a drink, Unrequited Love, Winterfell, the best laid plans of mice and men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-02-10 19:00:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12918213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ralph_E_Silvering/pseuds/Ralph_E_Silvering
Summary: Tyrion Lannister returns to Winterfell over seven years since he’d last left it. He’d worked hard to push Jon Snow, the King in the North, towards the Mother of Dragons, hoping that his innate Stark honor and goodness would halt her increasingly rapid plunge into madness and tyranny. However, the young king’s reunion with his siblings opens Tyrion’s eyes and threatens to undo all of his plans.





	1. The Queen's Hand

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own anything from Game of Thrones. This is just a quick one-shot about a potential Season 8 scene. As you might be able to tell, I’m trying to ease myself back into A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones mindset in order to update Winter is Coming. Wish me luck, lol.

Tyrion Lannister, Hand of the Queen to Daenerys Targaryen, really hated the cold; and snow, and ice and…..the North in general. Oh, he liked the _people_ well enough, hard and unsmiling and closemouthed though they were, it was just the land he hated. He hadn’t enjoyed visiting it during the summer, but now with winter upon this land for several years now, it was nothing short of unendurable.

Wrapping think furs around himself and trying desperately to keep his seat upon his horse after a particularly….. _exuberant_ gust of wind, he glared around at his companions. Ser Jorah Mormont, on his left and riding directly next to the queen, looked grim and watchful, but there was a lightness to visage that told Tyrion he was happy to be in the lands of his birth once more.

Sandor Clegane, the huge woman warrior his brother was so fond of, Brienne of Tarth, and Pod were all warmly dressed in furs and looked undisturbed by the fierce, biting winds and deep snow drifts. And the Stark soldiers looked positively happy.

Really, it wasn’t to be borne.

And that wasn’t even taking into account Jon Snow, King in the North, one of the last members of House Stark. He rode his horse on Queen Daenerys’ other side. His face was glum as usual, his dark eyes serious and sharp, but the way he held his reins, the tightness to his mouth, and the way he sat his mount showed he longed for nothing else than to urge his horse into a gallop north along the Kingsroad.

Two dragons circled high overhead, the creak of leather and the quiet wickering of horses was audible in the lulls between gales of wind, and the huge party of Daenerys Targaryen formed a royal procession north towards the seat of House Stark, the ancient and – reportedly magical – fortress of Winterfell.

Jon Snow had insisted on this slow trip via horseback, insisting that it would give the northerners a chance to see the Targaryen queen. Tyrion hadn’t seen any northerners except at the holdings and small castles they had stopped at, but Jon had assured him they were watching the procession. Mormont grew more and more uneasy the farther north they went, but Tyrion was mostly unconcerned. Snow had said they wouldn’t attack the queen as long as he rode by her side and the Lannister dwarf believed him. He felt that he understood northerners more than most southerners, and he knew that the common people’s loyalty for the Starks ran deep. He had been right that Bolton control wouldn’t last long, even though they were a northern family as well.

The North had been ruled by the Starks for as long as history recorded. Even if there wasn’t something……magical…..about that, well, it spoke to good stewardship at the very least. People in a land as harsh and unforgiving as the North would remember something like that.

Tyrion watched the young king. Jon Snow’s ascension as king in the North had surprised him – a bastard son tucked away in the Night’s Watch had seemed an unlikely candidate to displaced Bolton and Lannister hold over the North – but listening and watching the Northerners great their king told him much.

The Northerners were in awe of their king, spoke of him with the sort of passionate and devotion that they had shown to his brother, Robb, the Young Wolf. Tyrion had explained to the queen the legend which had sprung up in the wake of Robb Stark, the boy-king with his huge direwolf, who had never lost a battle. Now, he could see her watching as northerners raised their eyes to Jon Snow and called him the White Wolf and Your Grace. They smiled when Jon appeared, and waited for him to speak. Oh, like true northerners they argued with him about everything, and Tyrion watched as the king listened to their concerns an addressed them. They seemed to love him even more for this.

Daenerys commanded and people obeyed through fear or worship, but Jon Snow lead and people followed because they loved and respected him.

It was…..interesting. Tyrion, who had watched many people wield power over the years, had never met anyone else who ruled in quite the same way as the Starks. And Jon Snow was truly his father’s son.

They were still a day out from Winterfell when the honor guard rode to meet them. This wasn’t a northern custom, but Lady Stark had spent many years in the southern court and Tyrion suppressed a wry grin as rows of orderly Stark soldiers came towards them. A huge, white direwolf loped along before them, bounding over to Jon Snow as soon as the king came in sight. Tyrion watched the queen’s surprise at the wolf, at how it rubbed against Jon Snow’s leg and leaned in to the fond rub on his head the young king provided.

“His name is Ghost,” Jon Snow explained to Daenerys.

“An albino?” She had been even more surprised by its red eyes and pure, white fur.

“A very northern wolf, like its master,” Tyrion had observed, “with the coloring of the weirwood trees. You left him with your sister, Your Grace?”

Jon Snow had nodded but his attention was already gone, fixed northwards, impatience writ clear across his handsome features. He didn’t even notice when the silver-haired queen by his side rested a gentle hand on his arm. Daenerys frowned, looking almost hurt, before she removed it and fixed her attention on greeting the Captain of the Stark Guard.

Tyrion noticed Ser Davos Seaworth watching the interaction between the king and queen carefully. It had been Tyrion who had pushed Jon Snow towards the Dragon queen; the boy hadn’t been precisely unwilling – Starks always knew their duty, Tyrion had said at the time with no small amount of sarcasm, and the duty of a ruler was to make alliances, with marriage if necessary – but he hadn’t exactly been excited either. Which was odd, if Tyrion thought about it. Daenerys Targaryen was widely acknowledged as the most beautiful woman in the world and although much of that might be hyperbole, there was no denying that she was both stunning and powerful. Any many would have considered himself blessed by the Seven to be her lover.

Any man except Jon Snow, apparently.

They arrived within sight of Winterfell by mid-morning the next day and despite the chill in the air, the crunch of hard snow underfoot, the whistling of the icy wind, Tyrion felt his jaw drop. Winterfell was whole and proud once more, but it was the area around the castle walls – miles and miles and spreading in all directions – which had Tyrion godsmacked. When he had visited years ago, the small Winter Town located beneath the fortress had been mostly deserted and Winterfell had stood by itself amidst rolling green hills. Not so anymore. Stone and sod dwellings, most hastily constructed but in the process of being reinforced and even – in some places – being re-built entirely, surrounded the walls of the ancient castle. In every direction, within sight of those reassuring Stark banners, people had come, moving their entire lives and families, to re-locate next to their Stark overlords. Smoke rose from their chimneys, doors banged and dogs barked joyfully, as the merry, cacophony of thousands and thousands of people swelled towards them over the winter air.

They were happy, these people. Tyrion wouldn’t have believed it. After all the pain and suffering they had endured, all the pain and suffering that was yet to come, these northerners were happy to be here, before the walls of Winterfell.

“The king in the north, the king in the north,” they murmured, ripples spreading as more and more heads turned. Though a quiet bunch, the small children ran forwards to wave at Jon Snow or try to pet the giant direwolf at his side. Horns blew from the walls and the dragons, circling closer to their mother now, screeched and screamed, giant wings flapping. None of the northerners cried out or ran from the sight of these huge, fearsome beasts. They looked from their king to the white-haired woman beside him, and if there wasn’t anything friendly about those looks, there wasn’t anything hostile either.

Tyrion realized that they were waiting to see what their king said.

A crowd was quickly forming but Jon Snow did not halt his horse to explain anything to them. Instead, he kneed his horse and with a jump the animal took off at a gallop, speeding towards the castle.

“Jon!” Ser Davos shouted after him, while the Hound roared with raucous laughter. The men and women kept the road clear for him, and the Stark soldiers took off in pursuit, Brienne of Tarth, Pod and Hound amongst them, while Ser Davos clung onto his horse and cursed a bluestreak all the way.

Tyrion, Mormont and their queen were right on their heels, although most of her Dothraki and Unsullied entourage remained behind.

They poured through the gates and into the main courtyard, people scattering out of their wake. Tyrion had a quick glimpse of painstakingly dug paths in through the snow, a scene of efficient industriousness, before a high-pitched shout caught his attention.

“Jon!” It was a girl’s voice, loud and joyous. “Jon! Jon!” The cry came again. A short, slender girl with Jon Snow’s dark hair was pushing her way through the crowd. She was dressed in boyish clothing, in Stark colors of brown and blue, and a slender sword and knife hung at her waist. Her small face was vivid with happiness. “Jon!” she shrieked again, and then she was pelting across the clearing.

Jon Snow swung down from his horse, meeting the girl as she launched herself into his open arms. She wrapped her own arms and legs tight around him, buried her face against his bearded one. Jon Snow threw back his head and laughed, spinning her around, his fur-lined cloak flaring around him. The smile that split his lips was the biggest Tyrion had ever seen from him and he looked like he was squeezing the girl hard enough to hurt her, but she wasn’t complaining. 

“Sansa wrote to me and told me you were home, but I almost couldn’t believe it,” the dwarf heard him murmur to the girl in his arms, voice inaudible to most in the courtyard. People were smiling.

His queen moved to Tyrion’s side. “Who is that?” she asked, “Arya or Sansa?”

“That’s Arya Stark,” the Hound said, gruffly, moving up to Tyrion’s other side. His voice was more gravelly than usual.

Tyrion shot him a look. “If I didn’t know better, dog,” he couldn’t help but tease, “I would say that you sound almost emotional.”

The Hound didn’t look away from the joyful reunion between the brother and sister. “Well, you do know better, don’t you, dwarf,” but there was no malice in his tone.

There was a commotion from the back, a faint murmur from the crowd, and then they parted before Sansa Stark. Lady Stark was far different from the girl Tyrion remembered. This woman was beautiful, statuesque and regal, her serene face and vibrant red hair a beacon amidst her people. Her long, black dressed and fur-covered cloak was both practical and elegant. She was smiling as she approached her siblings, completely ignoring the strangers waiting to be presented.

Tyrion watched the northern king look up instantly at her approach, saw him hold open one of his arms for her, and stared as that icy, reserved woman melted into his embrace, her cheek pressed against his. Her face smoothed and she looked utterly relieved.

“I am glad you are home safe, my king,” she said, quietly, her eyes closed and lips barely moving.

Tyrion Lannister, keen observer of human behavior and interaction that he was, saw the northern king shiver at her words, a barely-discernible flinch before he controlled himself, the brief tightening of his arm around the waist of his tall sister, before it was gone. Tyrion felt his mind freeze for a second, before jolting into furious possibilities.

Had anyone else seen that? Tyrion was almost positive his queen had not, nor…….really anyone else. Had Ser Davos? The onion knight was watching his king with his two sisters with a bland expression, but his eyes were uncomfortably sharp.

And…… Arya Stark. Tyrion watched the younger Stark girl as she raised her head from Jon’s shoulder and looked almost-imperceptibly between her siblings. There was absolutely no expression on her face and Tyrion could not tell what she was thinking. Suddenly, Arya Stark laughed. “We have to go find Bran!” she declared and the moment, whatever it was, was broken.

“Here we are, Jon,” a panting voice called from deep within the crowd. “We’re coming!.”

A rotund man with an anxious face, dressed all in blank, wedged his way through the assembled people, pushing a young man in a wheeled-chair.

Bran Stark, the little lame prince, had grown up since Tyrion had last seen him. He had a young man’s features now, but an old man’s eyes. Their dark depths warmed as they landed on Jon. The king placed his youngest sister down, and released the other one, before striding over to his little brother and kneeling down before him. One gloved hand rose and rested against the young man’s cheek.

Tyrion couldn’t see Jon’s face, but he could hear the pure happiness in his voice, could imagine his rare smile, as the king breathed, “Bran.”

It was Bran Stark who leaned forward and reached his arms around his brother’s neck. “I saw you,” the boy said, eyes closing as for the first time, he looked his age. “Everywhere you went, I saw you. You were never alone, Jon,” he said.

Tyrion, surprised, looked towards the Stark girls. Sudden tears sprang in Lady Stark’s eyes before she dropped them to the ground and Arya Stark cleared her throat vigorously and shifted her stance as though preparing for a fight.

It was the call of the dragons which at last roused Jon Snow to remember the men and women he had arrived with. Hastily, he scrambled to his feet, clapping the large man who had pushed his brother on the back as he did so.

His eyes searched the crowd until they found Tyrion’s queen. Daenerys Targaryen, dressed all in silver-white, her pale hair indistinguishable from the snow around her, trained calm, expectant blue eyes on the northern king. She tilted her head and held out one hand, plainly expecting Jon to come to her side and face the courtyard as hers.

Jon Snow looked towards his sisters. “Sansa, Arya,” he began, making to take a step towards them, but Bran Stark reached out a hand and grasped his arm.

“Jon,” the young man said, his voice urgent, “before you say anything, anything at all, we need to talk.”

The large, worried man – who looked to be roughly Jon’s age as well as from the Night’s Watch – looked rapidly between the king and the Targaryen queen. “Yes, I agree, Jon,” he said, his eyes widening at whatever he had realized. “Before you make any announcements, there’s something very important and private we have to discuss with you. Something that will change……..everything…..” He trailed off suddenly as Bran elbowed him in the side.

Lady Stark looked between her younger brother and the Night’s Watch man. Smoothly, she turned to face the foreign visitor in her Court. “Queen Daenerys,” she began, formally, pitching her voice so that all in the courtyard could hear her. “You and your followers are welcome to Winterfell. On behalf of the King in the North, House Stark would like to extend hospitality and guest right to you and yours. A feast is being prepared in your honor and I ask that you follow our servants to the rooms which have been prepared for you.”

The Lady of Winterfell curtseyed to the foreign queen, polite and official and of the depth proper between equals. Tyrion felt the sudden stillness in his queen, the brief flare of surprise in Mormont, the surprise which flashed through Varys before he managed to hide it. Arya Stark had one hand on her sword hilt as she stood protectively half a step behind her sister.

Tyrion watched Jon Snow look between Sansa Stark and Daenerys Targaryen. He didn’t make a move to interfere.

Winterfell was……..hers, Tyrion Lannister concluded. And her word was law within its walls.

Tyrion turned and fixed his queen with a look. _Play nice,_ that look said. He had warned her about northern pride, cautioned her that coming in and claiming that Jon Snow bent the knee to her would have little effect upon the northern lords. _You cannot burn them all_ , he had said, more than half-praying that he was joking. Surely she wouldn’t see burning northerners who wouldn’t follow her as the path towards winning the Iron Throne?

Looking around at the sullen stubbornness on those hard, northern faces, watching as they seemed to stand behind their Lady, Tyrion wondered if Jon Snow had known this; if he had bent the knee to Daenerys knowing it wouldn’t make any difference. It wasn’t Jon Snow his queen would have to convince, but Sansa Stark.

His father had said that Sansa Stark was the key to the North and Tyrion wanted to laugh hysterically about the fact that even when he was dead, his father still needed to have the last word.

He felt Daenerys draw herself up, knew that her face was hard and her eyes flashing………and quickly intervened.

“On behalf of Queen Daenerys Targaryen, Stormborn, the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons and Queen of Mereen, Astapor and Yunkai,” he said, spilling the words out in his haste, “we accept your hospitality, Lady Stark, and the hospitality of House Stark. It has been a long ride and we would be most grateful to be shown to our quarters now.”

Sansa Stark’s keen, icy blue eyes flashed at him – in thanks or in acknowledgement of his move to suspend hostilities he did not know.

His own queen stalked passed him, Mormont at her elbow and Missandei not far behind, and he knew that there would be a reckoning later. And another as well when she learned she would need to plead her claim before a meeting of the northern lords.

But as he watched Jon, his direwolf, the Night’s Watch man and the rest of the Stark siblings head off together into the godswood, he began to think that he had another, even bigger problem. Tyrion Lannister prided himself on his ability to accurately sum up a situation and he did so now, unwilling though he was.

He had been planning to announce a betrothal between the King in the North and the Targaryen Queen, uniting North and South, Ice and Fire, while they were all within the walls of Winterfell. But watching the king hug his red-haired sister, the way their eyes gravitated towards one another, the way Jon let her lead within Winterfell, the way she automatically had her brother’s back, Tyrion Lannister began to believe that his carefully laid plans for the future were all beginning to unravel through factors he had not taken into consideration.

 _Northern pride_ , he thought again and _Starks were loyal to their own_ , which was something Cersei had told him once, when he had made it clear to her that Jon Snow – humble recruit in the Night’s Watch – was no threat to her rule because he was only a bastard and not a true Stark. _Blood is what matters_ , his father had said, and Jon Snow was indeed a Stark of Winterfell.

Yet…..perhaps he was jumping at shadows that were not even there. The Stark siblings had all suffered; perhaps it was just their natural protectiveness for all remaining members of their family which had him reading too much into things. No one else had noticed anything, after all.

“I need a drink,” he muttered to himself, heading off in search of the kitchens. The ale in Wintefell had always been especially good.

Stark and Targaryen; a union between these houses was perfect. His plans for his queen would not fail, he decided, no matter what Sansa Stark and Jon Snow felt for one another. They were siblings and nothing could be acted upon between them anyway.

Sternly, he ignored the niggling voice which reminded him of his own siblings – still together, with three children and another one on the way to boot – and continued into the warmth of the main keep.

Ice and Fire, he reminded himself. The union between Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow was destiny and there was nothing……nothing at all…….which would forestall it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End Notes: I feel like the interaction between Jon, Sansa, Arya and Bran needs something……. more? What do you think? Maybe Tyrion’s just missing a lot of the nuance since he doesn’t know them all that well…..lol. I wasn't going to write this scene from his perspective, but he kind of just took over. Maybe because he admires both the Starks and Daenerys. Also, I am really liking Daenerys’ story arc in the show, but I do feel like she is descending from hero to villain and most of the viewers aren’t even seeing it. I think Jon is going to inspire her to turn away from madness/tyranny in Season 8 and become a true hero.


	2. A Girl Sees Much

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya Stark is finally reunited with her beloved brother, Jon Snow. However, a series of revelations leaves her uncertain how she feels. She is certain, though, that the Dragon Queen, and her Lannister Hand, only bring trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t own anything from Game of Thrones. So, this story incited much more of a reaction than I would have thought possible. After much thought, I’ve found I have more of a storyline to share with you all. I wanted to continue from Tyrion’s point of view, but I also wanted someone closer to both Jon and Sansa, and Arya kept inserting her voice. So, this chapter is Arya POV. 
> 
> Thank you for all the lovely reviews and kudos/favorites I’ve received. And for those who don’t like the representation of Daenerys in this story (which is consistent with both show/books btw), the summary was clearly marked before you even read it. Therefore, kindly refrain from personal insults. Constructive criticism – and even just saying you disagree with my portrayal – is always welcome!

_“Stay here, Samwell Tarly,” Bran said, sounding overly formal and distant. “This should be just between our family.”_

_The rotund Nights Watch man, who reminded Arya of Hot Pie, nodded and released Bran’s chair. He hadn’t taken his eyes from Jon since he had arrived in Winterfell’s snowy courtyard. “It will be alright, Jon,” he promised now. “You’ll see. And…and you can come and talk to me about it after. If you want.”_

 

***

 

Arya kept a hold of Jon’s hand as the four remaining Starks moved through the silent crowd and into the snow-covered stillness of the godswood. She could feel the eyes of the silver-haired dragon queen boring into her back and gripped tighter to Jon’s leather-clad fingers.

Sansa, slightly ahead and pushing Bran’s chair, turned to look back at them. Her frost-colored blue eyes swept, without expression, over Arya and Jon, before glancing behind them. Arya, who had watched her sister closely since returning to Winterfell, noticed the faint tightening of her lips before Sansa turned to face front once more.

Jon was silent at Arya’s side, his presence warm and reassuring. Arya’s heart was still pounding erratically. She had prayed so often to be reunited with her brother that now she was here, she was desperately afraid it was all just a dream.

There was little that Jon’s dark eyes did not see. Now, he looked down at her. “You still have it,” he commented, gesturing towards Needle, ever buckled at her waist.

“Yes,” she said, simply, looking up to meet his gaze and all but clinging to his arm.

Jon’s smile was radiant and, as always, unexpected. “Good,” he said softly, not even breaking his stride as he scooped her back up in his arms. She squawked indignantly at such treatment but still buried her cold nose into his throat.

“A big brother’s prerogative,” Jon insisted, amused.

Sansa’s icy eyes were bright as she glanced at them again. “Almost there,” she murmured, inconsequently, to Bran. She didn’t seem to know how to talk to this new version of their little brother. Arya could feel Jon studying the two of them carefully.

She had missed how he would always quietly watch and assess a situation before speaking. It was something she noticed Sansa now doing as well, and she wondered if her sister had always had that inclination or if it was something she had learned from Jon during the year they had spent taking back the North together.

Robb – and even Arya herself – would have jumped in and demanded to know everything that had happened. Jon silently waited for them to tell him in their own time. Arya smiled against his neck. “You haven’t changed a bit,” she sighed, relieved beyond words.

Sansa, to the surprise of them all, snorted. “He broods even more now.” The smile she shot at Jon was cheeky, one part mischievous and one part…something else. Hinting at shared experiences between only the two of them. If Arya didn’t know better, she would say her sister was…flirting?

“Death does that to a man,” Jon returned, imperturbable, sounding like he was pretending to be their brother, Robb, after he had bested Ser Rodrik Cassel for the first time.

Sansa hummed disbelievingly, as though humoring him, and Arya thought Jon was actually trying to make a joke. About dying.

“Not funny,” she whispered into his ear. If Jon hadn’t been at Castle Black when Sansa finally made it there…

“ – Sansa would have become Littlefinger’s puppet. If she even managed to take back Winterfell at all. It’s unclear,” Bran said, his voice distant. He didn’t even look at them. “And you would never have come home but would have died trying to kill Cersei.”

Arya supposed he was talking to her. She shivered at the bleak future he painted. “You can see alternate futures?”

“No,” Bran said, not looking back, and still in that distant voice he always had, as though he was not really there with them, but somewhere far away. “But I know Littlefinger. And I know the Northern lords, and Ramsay Bolton, and Cersei, and you.”

Arya had no response to make to that.

“Together,” Sansa said, firmly. “We stay together, as Father would have wanted.”

They’d reached the heart tree, its face scary and gaping, and its red leaves – blood-red – the only color in a landscape of pure white snow and the black bark of dormant trees. Sansa wheeled Bran to a stop, and Jon placed Arya back on her feet.

They stood in silence.

“Uncle Benjen is gone,” Jon said at last. There was grief in his voice, a slightly bitter melancholy that was almost tangible in the air before them. Arya wondered what it had been like for him, alone at the Wall, as he watched while one by one he lost his family and his home all without being able to do anything about it. And to Bran, he asked, “You sent him to me?”

“The ravens found you and they told him where you were.”

“Uncle Benjen saved you?” Sansa asked Jon, looking back and forth between her two brothers. “North of the Wall?” She sounded as confused as Arya felt. “I thought Uncle Benjen had disappeared…”

“…years ago,” Arya finished.

But Jon, for the moment, ignored both of his sisters. Kneeling in the snow before Bran, his kingly cloak spread out around him, he looked carefully into Bran’s eyes. Bran returned that incisive glance calmly, looking over Jon and through Jon and within Jon, but not really seeming to _see_ Jon.

_A thousand-yard stare_ , Arya thought, having seen it so often during her travels in the war-torn Riverlands. In Stark and Tully and Lannister-loyal folk alike.

“Bran,” Jon said, quiet and commanding.

Bran looked up at his older brother, his king. His smile was sad, but distantly sad. As though he almost pitied Jon. “I’m not though, Jon. Not really anymore. There’s so much…. _other_ in me now.”

Jon didn’t flinch as Arya wanted to. Nor did he pull back.

He glanced at Sansa. “Bran has visions,” she explained to him, as she had to Arya.

Jon carefully pulled off the glove on his right hand and raised bare skin to place his palm on their brother’s cheek, He tilted the boy’s head down to better meet his gaze. “Bran, where’s Summer?” he asked.

“Dead.” The reply was dispassionate, and Arya shivered. She wondered if she had seemed as strange to Hot Pie and Sansa after her long absence; all the death and changes she had been through turning her into someone else completely.

“How did Summer die, Bran?” Jon’s voice had grown cold.

“To save me.”

“Like you sent Summer and Shaggydog to save me?” Jon asked now, still staring straight into Bran’s eyes. What he was looking for, exactly, Arya didn’t know. “After you and Rickon fled Winterfell. And you came North. To the Wall. Were you looking for me, Bran?”

Bran started and for a moment Arya thought she saw…

“It was dark and pouring rain,” Jon continued. “Tormund’s band of raiders had captured a farmer and they wanted me to execute him to prove my loyalties. Did you see that Bran?”

Bran made no reply, but he seemed to watch Jon almost warily.

“You were watching me somehow, for when I couldn’t do it, couldn’t kill that man even though I knew the others would do it if I did not…they named me traitor. And the wolves came out of the darkness. They saved my life.” Jon was silent for a moment. “I had no idea they were Shaggy and Summer until after I’d made it back to Castle Black. After I was healed of my injuries, Sam told me about Robb’s death, and Winterfell’s capture by the Ironborn and then the Boltons. And how he had seen you and let you through the Wall.”

“We tried to get to you,” Bran whispered. “Maester Luwin said to go north.” And then, as if to himself, “My brother’s in the Night’s Watch.”

“I tried to find you,” Jon confessed, his voice rougher than usual. “When I led the attack on Craster’s Keep.” Jon cleared his throat. “I half-expected to find you there.”

Bran started and for a moment he looked like he wanted to say something, before his eyes dropped and he grew still once more.

Jon shifted a bit. “What happened to Hodor, Bran?” It almost sounded like an interrogation to Arya, but she trusted Jon to know what he was doing.

“Jon…” Sansa began, but he shook his head at her and she fell silent.

“Did he die for you too?”

Bran’s eyes opened wide and suddenly there was…horror in them. “Hold the door,” he whispered. And then he was seeing Jon, actually seeing him. Hands rose to clasp Jon’s forearms in an iron grip. “Jon,” he gasped, sounding like he was surfacing up from deep water, frantic and unsure how long he could stay on top. “Jon, I did something terrible!”

Jon grabbed the back of Bran’s neck. “What did you do?” And it was their father’s voice, stern with forgiveness lurking in the background, but broking no refusal to answer.

“I wasn’t ready!” Bran cried, sounding almost like the Bran Arya remembered. “I wasn’t ready, and I did it anyway and I was in the past and in Hodor’s mind at the same time and I….” he trailed off, eyes still filled with horror.

“You what?” Sansa whispered.

“I made him Hodor,” Bran said, and then he was gone again. “Stable time loop,” he said, as if that explained anything.

When he looked back at Jon he was distant and impassive again. “He became Hodor because he had always been Hodor. I am Brandon Stark because there has always been a Brandon Stark.”

Arya raised an eyebrow. “You’re not making any sense, Bran.”

Their younger brother turned to look at the weirwood tree. Snow fell softly around them, Jon rose to his feet, and Arya shifted her legs. The clinking of Sansa’s pointy necklace was the only noise for several seconds. Arya slipped her hand in Jon’s again and felt him reassuringly squeeze it. She bit her lip and thought about what had just happened.

Bran had been different – in some ways all-but gone – since Arya had returned home. Whatever had happened to him North of the Wall had changed him. Forever, she’d thought. Like she had been changed. And Sansa had been changed. In some ways, all three of them were unrecognizable from children they had been when they’d last seen each other.

Only Jon was the same.

_Was that what had made Bran almost Bran again? Was Jon disappointed that none of them were the same from how he remembered them?_

She squeezed his hand tighter, not sure what she would do if Jon was disappointed in her. Sansa and Bran hadn’t seemed to be, but Sansa had been wary those first few weeks and Bran was…not being Bran.

Ghost prowled out of from behind some trees, rubbed against Jon in greeting and then went to stand beside Sansa. Absently, the Lady of Winterfell placed a hand upon the snow-white creature’s furry head. “What did you want to tell us, Bran?” Sansa asked. “Why are we here?”

For a moment Arya didn’t think their little brother would actually answer. Sometimes this new version of Bran made her want to stab him with Needle. Just a little bit.

At last Bran, without looking at any of them, said. “Jon, you’re not actually our father’s son. No more than I am really Bran.”

Jon frowned. “Of course, you’re Bran,” he said, at the same time as Arya, feeling anger swamp her, yelled, “Jon is just as much a Stark as you are, Brandon Stark!”

Bran glanced over at her, startled. “I didn’t say he wasn’t a Stark.”

Sansa was frowning. “So, what are you saying?” she asked slowly.

“Jon isn’t really Father’s son,” Bran said simply, like he was commenting on the weather. “He’s the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and our aunt, Lyanna Stark.”

For a moment there was complete silence. Then…

“Bullshit,” Arya said, and Sansa began laughing, first in humor, then incredulity and then shading into hysterical laughter, until Jon dropped Arya’s hand, took two strides over to her and pulled her into his arms. Arya realized that he was trembling, and that he hadn’t said anything, anything at all, to Bran’s statement. Jon had never felt like one of them. If Bran made him doubt…

She spun to face their brother. “What are you talking about, Bran?” she demanded. “Father claimed Jon as his.”

“He lied,” Bran said simply. There was the faintest wistful smile on his face now. “He didn’t even hesitate. Aunt Lyanna begged him to protect her son, begged him to protect him from King Robert. And Father held Jon in his arms and watched Aunt Lyanna die and he…he loved you, Jon, from the moment he held you.”

Sansa’s face was still pressed into Jon’s shoulder, her arms still clenched around him, but to Arya it now looked like she was the one holding him up. He clenched their sister – no, Sansa wouldn’t be his sister, would she? Cousin. The word felt wrong – too tightly.

“But I….” his voice was a ruin, a croak. He looked horrified.

“You slept with her already,” Bran said, “I know.” And Jon flinched.

“What?!” Sansa and Arya cried together.

“Slept with who?” Arya demanded.

“That…that…” Sansa couldn’t seem to get the words out. She pulled away from Jon, her icy eyes suddenly hot and uncertain. Her hands clenched at her sides and Arya was surprised to realize that her lady-like sister looked like she wanted to hit something.

“Daenerys Targaryen,” Bran explained, for her benefit. Arya scrunched her nose up. That haughty-looking silver-haired shorty with her army of foreigners wasn’t the person she would pick for Jon.

“I slept with my Aunt.” Jon was obviously going down an entire different mental track than the rest of them. Arya tried to stifle a giggle. Sansa shot her an exasperated look.

“What? It’s very Targaryen,” she said, and Sansa looked a little, a very little less like her entire foundation had been destroyed right under her feet.

“Targaryen,” Sansa murmured, and shook her head as though she had never heard the word before.

“Yes,” Bran agreed, looking unusually abashed. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. It wasn’t something I wanted to entrust to a letter…”

“No, no…that’s…. right…” Jon began to pace back and forth. “Are you sure?” He asked. “How can you be sure?” He was a man grasping at straws, praying to the Old Gods that this was all a dream. He looked wildly between Arya, Sansa and Bran, and then the heart tree. He looked at Ghost.

“Jon,” Sansa began, reaching out a hand towards him, and he stepped back from her as though she meant to strike him. Sansa stilled, instantly, and then very slowly lowered her hand.

Jon had dropped his eyes and was studying the snow under his boots intently. Arya wondered if she would be fast enough to run and tackle-hug him before he could move out of the way.

“What’s my real…the name my mother gave me?” He asked at last.

“I can show you. I think,” Bran said. “If you touch the tree. We’ve done this before, Jon, and so I think it will work this time. Touch the tree, and I’ll show you.”

Jon didn’t look at any of them before he placed his bare hand on the white trunk of the tree. Bran raised a hand to place on top of his. He looked up at their brother – cousin, brother – and for a moment, finally, Arya could see her little brother in those grown up features. “Jon,” he whispered, and Jon’s eyes flew to his. “You will always be my brother,” he promised.

Later, after Jon had seen Bran’s vision and then silently walked away from them all. Later, after Arya had cuffed Bran on the back of the head and told him there were about a thousand better ways of telling Jon something like that than the half-baked way he’d gone about it. Later, after Arya had stuck to Sansa’s side for the rest of the day, helping her settle their guests and keep her away from the dragon queen and afraid that her sister would fall apart at a single harsh word. Later, after the welcoming feast and the speeches and Jon leaving as soon as decently possible to lock himself in his study.

Later, after everyone else had gone to bed, Arya slowly made her way up from the training yards and hovered, uncertain, outside the door to Jon’s study. She had been in there many times since she had been home. Sansa had kept it exactly as Jon had left it before he’d gone to Dragonstone, and Arya loved looking at all the maps of the North, and the old books taken from Maester Luwin’s rooms and Winterfell’s library, and Jon’s scrawling handwriting covering random bits of parchments.  

The door was slightly ajar and warm, golden light glimmered out into the dark hallway. Arya made to push the door open, but Sansa’s voice on the other side stopped her.

“Jon,” Sansa said, quiet and coaxing, barely above a whisper.

Arya hesitated, suddenly uncertain, before taking a deep quiet breath and inching the door open.

_Quiet as a shadow_ , she reminded herself.

Jon was asleep at the big table in the center of the room, a tankard of ale at one elbow, a flickering candle at the other, and his cheek pillowed against a giant book that looked like one of the histories of the Seven Kingdoms. Arya shot it a disgruntled look.

Septa Mordane had once tried to get her to read the entire set of the Histories of the Seven Kingdoms, but Arya had gotten bored at the sections that didn’t talk about battles. She’d particularly liked the recounting of Ser Arthur Dayne’s exploits against the Kingswood Brotherhood and his slaying of the Smiling Knight.

Sansa was bent over their brother, gently brushing a curl of dark hair away from his bearded face and calling to him softly. “It’s time to get you to bed, Jon,” she said, and Arya had never heard her cold, stern sister sound so soft since the day Arya had returned home and Sansa had grabbed her in a fierce hug.

Jon grunted slightly but didn’t open his eyes, and Arya stifled a giggle even as Sansa sighed.

Sansa knelt before his chair and took his right hand in hers, her other hand placed on Jon’s cheek. “You have to wake up now, Jon,” she called, and Arya watched as Jon’s fingers curled around Sansa’s and his eyes hazily opened. They were blurred by sleep and drink, and she didn’t think he was aware enough to know he was awake.

Sansa dropped her hand from his cheek.

He raised his head with a groan and looked down at Sansa, kneeling next to his chair and almost at eye level with him. His fingers were entwined with hers. He studied their hands for a moment with a bemused expression, before looking up into Sansa’s eyes.

“My beautiful sister,” he murmured, his other hand coming up, hesitating, before finally he brushed his fingertips, feather-light over Sansa’s cheek, skated over her parted lips, pushed a strand of red hair behind her ear.

Arya’s heart was pounding in her chest and she wasn’t sure she was breathing enough.

She could just make out Sansa’s face, turned mostly away from her, and watched her eyes close, a tension she hadn’t noticed her sister carrying leaving her at Jon’s touch. “Cousin,” Sansa murmured, barely a breath of air, her eyes still closed.

Jon’s eyes never left her face. He sighed and slowly bent his head until his forehead rested against hers. Sansa’s hand came up to cover his, where it rested against her cheek.

The fire glowed off of red hair and dark brown and Arya could clearly see the longing writ across both of their features by its light.

“Jon,” Sansa began, clearly marshalling some argument she had been preparing. Arya knew that tone.

Jon obviously did too, because he groaned.

And then he kissed her.

Sansa gasped, Arya did as well and then hastily clapped a hand over her mouth. Jon froze, and then they both pulled apart, staring at one another, eyes wide, until Sansa made an indescribable sound, low in her throat, hands twisting in Jon’s curls, before she tugged him back towards her, lips pressed against his once more.

Arya, wide-eyed, heart pounding, took two silent steps backwards and pulled the door shut. She spun, intent on running…. somewhere, anywhere, and almost ran straight into the silver-haired Targaryen queen.

The woman was undoubtedly beautiful, and she wore her hair in northern braids, and she had been nothing but polite to Jon’s siblings…cousins…but she wanted the Iron Throne and she wanted Jon, and she had _no idea_ that Arya’s brother was actually Aegon Targaryen, the true heir to the Seven Kingdoms. Or that he was kissing his sister-cousin in his study right now.

_Seven Hells._

“Is Jon in there?” Daenerys Targaryen asked, attempting a smile in Arya’s direction.

Arya knew her face was cold and unwelcoming, could see the raised eyebrow of the queen’s attendant, the dark-skinned girl with the cunning eyes, but she couldn’t let any of her sudden fear and uncertainty show. “No.” She shook her head. “No, no, no he’s not.” She realized she was still shaking her head and stopped. Cleared her throat. “I think he went to bed already. I was just about to check.” She shifted a but, knowing something else was needed, but courtly manners had never been her strong point. This should be Sansa’s job.

But Sansa was in Jon’s study kissing their brother.

_Seven Hells._

“Shall I tell him you asked after him, milady?” Arya asked, desperately, and tried to ignore the handmaiden’s – or whatever she was – disapproving frown. She had no idea what was wrong with that statement anyway. She had been perfectly politely. Frantically she tried to remember what Septa Mordane told her to do when confronted by foreign royalty, but all she could remember was curtseying and she didn’t think it would come off well in her leathers with Needle buckled at her waist.

Arya bowed instead. “Can I escort milady back to her chambers?” And she firmly pushed the dragon queen away.

Jon and Sansa better appreciate the effort she was making on their behalf. Her nose wrinkled as she pictured just what had them distracted behind the study door, and then she shuddered, pushing the image from her mind.

It was very…very _Targaryen_. And she had no idea how she felt about it.

The next day Arya spent avoiding all of her siblings. If Bran had been watching them last night…she didn’t want to know. And she was fairly certain she wouldn’t be able to meet either Jon’s or Sansa’s eyes after what she had seen. She prayed to all seven gods that it had gone no further than kissing.

Her mother’s admonishments on the subject rang in her ears and she wondered if Lady Catelyn was somewhere rolling in her grave. The Bastard of Winterfell had dared lay hands on her eldest, trueborn, daughter.

But Jon wasn’t a bastard. He was the heir to the Iron Throne. And he was surrounded by Northern Lords who would hate him for being half-Targaryen, and by his Targaryen Aunt and her army, who had claimed the throne as her own. Arya shivered again and began to think long and carefully about what would happen when the truth was made known.

Late in the evening, as the snows fell, and the dull grey day had long since descended into a black night, Arya entered the main courtyard from the stables. Various bonfires had been set up, Free Folk and Knights of the Vale and Northmen and Targaryen loyalists were scattered about telling stories, even singing songs.

Arya wrinkled her nose. Singing songs _badly_.

Around one of the first, she found Jon and Bran and Samwell Tarly and Ser Davos Seaworth and Tyrion Lannister. For a moment she watched Jon clap a hand on the Tarly man’s back, watched Bran smile, looking more like Bran since Jon had returned.

A faint clanking of metal armor and the tinkling of her sister’s necklace heralded Sansa and Brienne of Tarth. Sansa was talking with Lady Lyanna Mormont, who had made the trip to Winterfell for the meeting of the Northern Lords being held tomorrow.

Lady Mormont nodded at Lady Stark before she headed off for her own retainers, but Sansa and Brienne moved towards Jon and Bran. Brienne reached over and grabbed a tankard of ale from Ser Davos, sitting down and engaging him in conversation, but Sansa moved to Jon’s side. He moved over on the wooden bench upon which he was seated, and she gracefully sat beside him, her arm going through his as she leaned gratefully on his shoulder.

They looked happy together.

Bran was smiling, and Tyrion Lannister was watching them intently, eyes keenly speculative.

_Seven Hells._

Arya marched over and plopped herself right in Jon’s lap. Her brother swore as his ale flew from his hand, but he quickly grabbed her around the waist to keep her from falling off.

“Arya!” Sansa cried, reprovingly, and Arya smirked. She leaned against Jon and whispered in his ear.

“Be more discreet.”

She felt her brother still against her, before he took a deep breath, nodded and pressed his lips against her forehead. “I don’t know how I’ve survived all these years without you,” he said, his beloved, familiar northern accent warm and filled with happiness.

Arya closed her eyes and listened to his steady heartbeat, heard Bran’s voice as he talked with Samwell Tarly about dragonglass, felt Sansa’s hand slip into hers. “I don’t know either,” she told her big brother truthfully.

She wasn’t sure how she felt about all the new revelations she’d had yesterday, but she did know that Jon and Sansa and Bran were family, even if they were being weird and gross. And no Lannister or Targaryen was going to harm them as long as she was here.

 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took forever to write. Not sure how well I got Arya’s voice, and the scene before the heart tree, where Jon’s parentage is revealed, gave me such trouble…I’m still not really happy with it. Ah well. 
> 
> What did you think of the scene between Jon and Bran? And Jon and Sansa in the study? How did I do capturing Jon and Arya’s special, close relationship? Hopefully not terrible.
> 
> Part 3 will be Daenerys POV. And Part 4 will be Jaime Lannister POV. Next chapter, Daenerys stands before the Northern Lords. Sansa and Daenerys take center stage.


	3. The Last Targaryen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I am the last Targaryen, Jon Snow.”
> 
> Irony is a wonderful thing. Daenerys Targaryen, the First of Her Name, had never thought that retaking her birthright would go like this. Nothing was as she had expected and Jon Snow, the King in the North, was most unexpected of all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t own anything from Game of Thrones. Just a friendly reminder, death threats are not appropriate to send to an author over how they portray a fictional pairing from a fictional show. Kindly learn appropriate behavior and life priorities. If you don’t like the story, don’t read it. 
> 
> This chapter – Daenerys before the Northern Lords – is probably what I’m most excited for this season, after Jon and Arya’s reunion. Thank you to all those who have kept an open mind about this story, those who politely stated their objections to characterization or plot, and those who liked the story and let me know that. I appreciate you all. Please accept Chapter Three as thanks, lol.

Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Queen of Mereen and Astapor and Yunkai, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons, and the Silver Queen, stood before the assembled gathering of lords and ladies from the Vale and the North, the Lord Commander and other high officers of the Night’s Watch, as well as the remaining chieftains from among the Wildlings who had come south of the Wall.

And she hated the lot of them.

She was dressed all in white, fur on her collar, her hair twisted into braids resembling the Northern Style – which Missandei began to do sometime after the King in the North first arrived on Dragonstone – and her proposal of alliance with the North, in return for their re-affirmation of allegiance to the Iron Throne had been more than reasonable.

“A Targaryen cannot be trusted!” boomed the voice of Lord Nestor Royce from the Vale, one of the most powerful lords from that region and currently the warden of Lord Robyn Arryn. “And neither can a Lannister!”

Seated at the table next to where Dany stood at the center of the Great Hall, Tyrion Lannister grimaced. He had been strangely quiet since Dany went before the lords and told them that Jon Snow had bent the knee to her, and that she was now rightful queen of all Seven Kingdoms.

That had provoked outrage, a storm of dissension which had almost come to blows but for the raised voice of Lady Sansa Stark, seated behind the High Table next to her brother, Brandon, the lame one. The lords had retaken their seats at her command, but the dissent went on unabated.

And Lady Stark of Winterfell didn’t appear to be doing anything to stem the tide.

The Great Hall at Winterfell was small compared with those in the South, or those across the Sea. The unadorned grey stone of its walls was plain and dull, chilly and damp, and outside the snow fell, white and cold and blanketing the earth in silence, as it had ever since Dany arrived. She should have despised this place, found it as dreary as Tyrion warned her it would be.

But she didn’t.

She loved the candles lit at all the tables, their warm, golden glow throwing back the gloom of darkness which clung to this land. She was fascinated by the plain colors of the northern lords and ladies, the unadorned aspect of the armor used by the Knights of the Vale, and the plain, brown leathers worn by the northerners. There were hints of elegance within their severity; silver jewelry in their hair and silver broaches on their cloaks, a pair of intricate metal-worked direwolves clasped at Lady Stark’s throat, matching those of her brother, the king, the velvet woven into young Lady Mormont’s skirt, the braids worn in the northern ladies’ hair.

For all the harshness of their lives and land, there was beauty here as well. The great white direwolf – Jon’s direwolf, Ghost – stirred from his position lying across the floor at Lady Stark’s feet. He watched Dany with red eyes and she was once again struck by their glow. _Like fire_ , she thought, though Tyrion had said that Ghost reminded him of the red leaves and white bark of the Northern weirwood trees.

Dany had never seen weirwood trees before coming to Winterfell.

She shivered. If there was one thing she didn’t like about this place, it was those trees, with their haunting, scary faces, mouths open in a silent scream as they watched her. Always watching and judging. She had the strangest feeling that in their eyes, she did not belong here.

Which was nonsense of course.

She was the Queen. And she would show them this.

“Lord Royce raises a good point,” came the cool voice of Sansa Stark. “What proof do you offer us that you can be trusted. Your family broke every bond of loyalty with the North, betrayed two generations of my family, and caused centuries of chaos, strife and bloodshed as you fought amongst each other. Kinslayers and Oathbreakers. Why would your reign not just be more of the same?”

Dany was also fairly sure that she didn’t like Lady Stark. The cold, assessing gaze that had greeted Dany when she first arrived in Winterfell was unchanged. The tall, red-haired woman was beautiful but as frigid as an iceberg, derisive and stuck up. She was arrogant and foolhardy in her belief that Dany wouldn’t just take what she wanted. The Targaryen queen still had two dragons, the Unsullied, the Dothraki and the Ironborn. She could crush Sansa Stark and her petty delusions of grandeur any time she wanted.

Dany stared evenly back at the Northern ruler, wondering why in the name of the Old Gods and the New, Jon had left her in charge of Winterfell in his absence. She was clearly attempting to usurp his throne.

Still she tried to control her temper. “Look at what happened once my father was deposed and my brother, Rhaegar, killed,” Dany said. She didn’t have time for this squabbling. Varys had informed her this morning that Cersei Lannister’s troops hadn’t moved from the capital. She needed more information about whether or not that Lannister Usurper was planning to backstab her and move into the South unopposed, all while Dany was up here uselessly arguing with a bunch of petty lords, over a cold and barren wasteland.

_I am the blood of the Dragon_ , she reminded herself. _I take what is owed to me. I don’t have to plead for it any longer._

All those years, powerless and afraid, had convinced her that she would never put herself in that position again. And why should she? These pathetic men, squabbling and defying her, didn’t control the largest army on the continent. They didn’t have three –

No. _Two_ dragons.

She had bled for these people. She had lost a _child_ for their king. She was owed this. She had earned it and she would _take_ it if necessary.

She turned to look over towards her left where, leaning against the wall, Jon Snow stood. He had been there since she’d started arguing with the Northern lords. He met her gaze, but she couldn’t read the emotions behind in those dark eyes.

He looked handsome and regal, his dark hair pulled back into the knot he habitually wore – some Northern tradition, no doubt – with dark blue hose and doublet, made of rich fabric, and a short cloak pinned at the center with two silver direwolves. The outfit had been a gift from Lady Stark upon his return, and the exquisite needlework had been her doing as well. There was some, strange tension between those two that Dany did not understand, and she knew Tyrion saw it too, from the way his eyes moved between the two Starks whenever they were in the same room together.

Jon hadn’t said a word since he’d stood at the center of the Great Hall, announced he’d promised to fight for her cause once the White Walkers were defeated and that he had subsequently surrendered the northern crown. The silence that followed his pronouncement, as lords and ladies and wildlings and knights looked between the northern king and Lady Stark, lasted as long as it took for Jon to leave Dany’s side and take up his position along the wall.

If she thought about it then, she would have notice he was about equidistant between her and his sister.

If she thought about it at all, she would have realized that it was never going to be easy to win the allegiance of the North and the Vale. Those who had tasted independence rarely wanted to give it up again.

But she hadn’t thought about it because she had assumed that Jon would stand beside her and argue her cause, _their_ cause. But then, she had also assumed that his sister, Sansa, would follow what he decided.

The northern lords started muttering amongst themselves as soon as Jon left Dany’s side, quieting a bit when she’d cleared her throat to announce her ascension to the northern throne, and then raising their voices to shouting level soon after.

Throughout it all, Jon Snow never said a word. He watched everything with that keen, dark gaze which she sometimes felt saw straight through her, eyes moving first from Dany to Sansa. Lady Alys Karstark was attempting to voice an opinion, but the other lords were talking over her. Dany tuned them all out. At the edge of her awareness, she could feel Drogon and Rhaegal as they swooped and glided over Winterfell’s parapets, glorying in the crisp, fresh air. They could feel her rising anger and she felt them begin to mirror it, their screams echoing above stone and snow.

The Great Hall resounded with the distant echoes of dragons calling.

The dissent petered out and there was a moment of silence as the Hall held its collective breath. A door creaked open behind Dany. From the corner of her eye she saw the younger Stark girl, Arya, slip through it and close the door again. Dany thought that Jon’s younger sister was odd for a noblewoman. She dressed in leathers as though she fancied herself a soldier and wore a Valyrian steel dagger on one hip and a thin rapier on the other. The rapier looked ridiculous and Dany had seen enough fights to know that it wouldn’t hold up against the broadsword wielded by the knights and sellswords of Westeros. The girl couldn’t have ever been in a real fight, despite the ease with which she carried the blades.

Her hair was as dark as Jon’s and worn in the same style – something Stark men preferred no doubt – and she had a cat’s slinking grace and manner. She also had a cat’s watchful, unblinking eyes. Her cold blue gaze fixed on Dany as she moved around the outside of the Hall, eventually circling to Jon’s side and leaning against the wall beside him; an exact mirror of his pose.

She turned to respond to something Jon said to her, voice too low for Dany to make out any words, and the dragon queen realized that she hadn’t taken her eyes off the Stark girl since she’d entered the Hall. There was something unsettling about her which caused a shiver of unease to crawl up Dany’s spine. There were rumors running around among the Northerners about where she had been after House Stark fell…rumors that included the horrific fate of House Frey. _Justice,_ Tyrion said, when he’d told her what had happened. _A bloody, harsh justice, but justice all the same._ Dany reminded herself to find out the truth of the matter from Varys later, but she wondered at the strange customs of these people, that guest right would matter so much to them.

“My lady.” Sansa Stark’s steely voice broke through Dany’s ruminations. ‘ _My lady_ ,’ Dany thought _and not ‘Your Grace.’_ She felt her steadily rising anger grow hotter and Drogon screamed again from high above. Several of the lords and ladies flinched, and Dany felt grim satisfaction in their innate fear of her children even as she noticed that neither Lady Stark or her strange, lame brother showed any alarm. They insulted her at every turn.

From his place sprawled at Lady Stark’s feet, the white direwolf raised its huge head and stared a Dany.

“ _Lady_ Sansa,” she returned, and could see Tyrion frantically shaking his head at her from his seat on the bench. His timidity in the face of these petty backwater nobles made her blood run hot. He was a coward when she really needed him, and he had a soft spot for these Starks. But no matter. The North would be hers, and so would the Vale. Seven kingdoms were hers by birthright. Not five. She had not come all this way to settle for five. She was _owed_ this.

Missandei, standing just behind her and slighty off to her right, reached out and discretely touched the inside of her wrist. Dany was tired of begging, but she tried to moderate her tone so that it sounded less furious and more reasonable. She met the self-styled Lady of Winterfell’s gaze squarely.

“I am not my father, Lady Stark. I understand that he made mistakes, but he paid for them with his _life_ ,” she stressed. “And the legacy of the Targaryens was not just war and death and betrayal, it was law and order, infrastructure and learning. It was the unification of constantly warring little principalities into a place where someone could travel along the Kingsoad from Castle Black to King’s Landing without being attacked. It was the sharing of knowledge and culture –”

“The North keeps its own culture,” a white-bearded, belligerent man shouted over her, shocking her by his interruption. How _dare_ he?

“Lord Glover,” Tyrion muttered to her out of the corner of his mouth.

“Lord Glover,” Dany said, her voice utterly impassive and masking the burning anger underneath. “How dare you interrupt your queen.”

“You’re not my queen,” the older man spat, still on his feet and with his eyes turning to look at the flame-haired woman seated behind the high table. “If any woman rules the North, it’s _her_. Ned Stark’s daughter.” There were some nods at this, muttered oaths of agreement, while others looked uneasily towards their king, or stared stonily at Dany without looking at any of the Starks.

Young Lady Mormont was now on her feet as well, and Dany noted that Lord Glover sat back down at her ascent. Quickly. “I have said it before,” the girl said in a strident voice, glaring daggers around her and effortlessly commanding the entire attention of the Hall despite her age and small stature in a way that Dany couldn’t help but admire, “but we know no king but the king in the north, whose name is _Stark_ ,” she emphasized.

There were several muted cheers at her pronouncement and Dany watched as Tyrion carefully took note of those who were in agreement. She, instead, watched those whose gazes moved between Jon and his sister equally. She didn’t understand the relationship between them, the way Jon was clearly letting her take control, as though he _wanted_ her to be ruler of the North, and the way he was deliberately refusing to speak for Dany’s cause. Starks kept their word, she knew that, so why wasn’t he keeping it on _her_ behalf.

“ _Lord_ Snow,” she said, emphasizing his correct title, “will continue as your king once we are wed,” she said, raising her voice in a way she feared wasn’t entirely dignified, but these northerners were rowdy and didn’t know the proper way to behave before a queen.

Someone in the Great Hall stifled a disbelieving snort. Dany’s head swung, trying to find the guilty party. A sea of stony faces met her gaze.

“Our last king road south and married a foreigner,” Lord Glover said, now on his feet again. “And he lost the north.” He swelled with outrage like a bullfrog and his face turned red beneath the white of his beard.

“The king in the north is needed in the north, not in the south at _your_ court,” shouted a younger man with a face like a weasel. “Lord Cerwyn,” Tyrion hissed in an undertone.

“Winter is here. We asked for your help, not for you to assume control of our land!” Another woman shouted, her face long, solemn and unattractive in that northern way.

“We will never submit to a foreign ruler!”

“No more southern kings!”

“We are done with Targaryens!”

It was getting out of control.

Dany felt her face flushing with rage, felt Drogon’s and Rhaegal’s answering fury at the corners of her mind, and opened her mouth to tell these Northerners exactly what she thought of them –

A ruckus rose behind her, the banging of metal, and Dany glanced back to see Ser Jorah Mormont clanging the bare blade of his sword against a small shield bearing the image of a rampant bear, which was the sigil of his House. He kept banging, the sound echoing even over the shouting, until those nearest to him on the benches and at the tables simmered down a bit and turned towards him.

He stood behind Missandei, firmly on Dany’s side as always, but the noise of sword on shield began to ring in her ears and cause a humming after several seconds. She saw young Lady Mormont watch Ser Jorah in a narrow-eyed stare before the diminutive girl stood up decisively and bellowed, “QUIET!”

Most of the shouting desisted.

Lady Stark was on her feet, fists on the High Table. “This isn’t helping.” Her cold, precise voice cut through the mutinous muttering as effectively as a scythe through wheat. Reluctantly, with a clear promise to begin again if the situation warranted, the Northern lords subsided for the moment.

“My cousin wants to speak,” Lady Mormont said, and Dany could feel Jorah’s sudden stillness behind her. He was surprised. She knew the shame he carried with him, his regret over the dishonor he had brought to his family, and she wondered if it was shame or happiness that filled him now at Lyanna Mormont’s acceptance of his presence.

She wanted to look back and see his face, but she could not. A queen couldn’t show more concern for one subject over another, and he was too far behind her for a brush of hands.

Nevertheless, her estimation of Lady Mormont rose slightly higher.

Jorah cleared his throat. “I have served the queen for many years,” he began. “I have watched her free those in bondage and give justice to those without it. She has earned my loyalty.” The Hall was quiet as the northerners let him speak. Jorah may no longer have the accent or the mannerisms, but he had been raised among them and knew their ways. “I know you have suffered,” he continued, voice growing stronger, and Dany resisted the urge to look behind her again. She wanted to see his face. She had felt lost without his ever-present steady commitment to her. She _had_ been lost when she’d learned he had betrayed her. She could never go through thinking him lost to her again and by some miracle, by old gods or new, or even the strange gods of Asshai, he had been returned to her.

“But _she_ has not caused your suffering. She has only come to help, and I believe in her. She is _worth_ following.”

The words, the sincerity behind them, left Dany feeling strangely lightheaded. She had to look at him then, she just couldn’t help herself. His face was older, more lined and wearier than when she had first met him, but the love blazing in those blue eyes burned as brightly as ever. It was a knight’s love for his queen – which was all she had seen for many, many years – but it was also more than that. It was undying devotion. She had never believed Jorah truly loved her as more than an abstraction, a reflection of the wife he had lost, until this moment.

She turned away. The intensity of his gaze frightened her. She had loved Drogo. She was in love with Jon Snow. She knew where she stood in relation to them. What Jorah promised her, wat she saw in his eyes…was too much.

“I beg your pardon, Ser Jorah,” came a timid, male voice, breaking Dany and Jorah’s locked gazes and recalling the queen’s attention to these problematic northerners. “She may not have adversely affected the North yet, but she has caused other suffering.”

Dany struggled to focus. From his place along the wall, Jon finally straightened up from his watchful non-interference. His attention was all on…

Oh. Dany saw him now.

A rotund man, young, dressed all in black, stood next to Maester Wolkan to one side of the High Table. He was on the other side of the tall, manly-looking and armored woman who seemed to be Lady Stark’s bodyguard. Dany narrowed her eyes at him, aware that he seemed familiar. After a moment, she placed him. He was the same man who had greeted Jon upon his arrival to Winterfell. He had greeted the King in the North like an old friend, and he had been pushing the lame Stark boy’s chair. Someone important to Jon – and these Starks – then.

She recognized the black ensemble as characteristic of the Night’s Watch. “And you are?” she demanded, aware her voice had dropped several degrees and was filled with fury once more. A king had the authority to treat with a queen, not a lowly brother of the Night’s Watch.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tyrion wince. She felt an absurd wish for Lord Varys to be at this gathering, who was conspicuous by his absence. He, at least, wouldn’t have cowered and sniveled before these upstart traitors.

“My name is Samwell Tarly, a brother of the Night’s Watch, Your Grace,” the timid man stammered. “But before that I was of Horn Hill and…you killed my father. And my younger brother, Dickon.”

Dany knew who he was now. “You father and brother were leaders of an enemy army,” Dany said. “We are at war. Their deaths were necessary. You would never question any other leader who made such a call.”

“You burned them alive!” The fat didn’t seem like he could actually believe it of her. “A defeated old man and a boy, who had no way to oppose you anymore. You could have sent them to the Night’s Watch, you could have done anything else!”

Behind her, Dany heard Jorah gasp. She wondered that no one had told him what had happened at the Trident. “Khaleesi,” he whispered, his voice rough, but Dany hardened herself and refused to look back at him.

“I gave them a more merciful death than they deserved. I gave them a better death than they would have given me.” Dany felt no regret. That had been necessary.

“You murdered the son along with the father,” Samwell Tarly continued, “whose only crime had been loyalty. Without trial. Simply to make a statement, you condemned them to one of the worst deaths imaginable; you _burned_ them alive, and you made a bunch of farm boys and merchants and tinkers – who made up my father’s army – watch.” The timid fat man’s voice wavered, and his face turned red, but his eyes were angry and hurt.

Jon Snow was staring at her as though he had never seen her before. She turned away from him. “That was necessary,” she insisted, ton indicating that the conversation was closed. She wouldn’t turn around to see Ser Jorah’s expression.

“Necessary?” Sansa Stark’s polite tone was more insulting than any amount of scorn. It masked a disbelief so strong Dany could almost taste it.

“Yes,” she snapped. “What would you know of necessity, Lady Stark. You lost your home for a couple of years. Loyalty still held in the North towards your family. Everyone who was loyal to mine is dead.”

The silence in the Hall was deafening. Lady Stark laughed once, almost a bark, sharp and bitter. Ghost stirred again. “You’re mistaken.” Her voice never wavered in its coolness. “My brother and I took back the North through compromise and alliance. Through blood and sweat and tears. You think we lost our youngest brother – Jon watched him _cut_ down in front of him – because the North was loyal to us?” And now her voice rose at last. Her eyes had cooled even further to shards of ice. She rose to her feet and Dany hated the fact that Lady Stark was so much taller than her; statuesque where Dany would only ever be called petite.

Sansa Stark’s voice was frigid. “Jon and I had to re-earn their loyalty, and it almost cost us everything. What have you sacrificed to earn the loyalty of the Seven Kingdoms? What right to them do you have, besides your father’s name and the fear inspired by your armies and dragons?”

The Lady of Winterfell’s voice rang loudly across the Hall, and Dany could feel everyone holding their breath, eyes swinging between the red-haired northern queen and the silver-haired southern one.

“You don’t have any right to them, you know, even through your father’s name.” Samwell Tarly’s voice was quiet but the satisfaction in it carried clearly to every lord and lady gathered in Winterfell.

“I am the last Targaryen, _Lord_ Tarly,” she spat at him. It was all she could do to keep herself in check before her dragons came down and burned every last person in this decrepit, second-rate hall to a crisp. Just like she had left the Dothraki chieftains. All she was surrounded by was petty, squabbling, small-minded men.

“I am a brother of the Night’s Watch,” the fat man told her, his eyes darting for a moment to look at Jon still standing along the wall. He grimaced and almost looked apologetic before he turned back to meet Dany’s gaze. “I am not Lord Tarly any more than you are the last Targaryen.”

Were all these Northerners fools?

“What are you talking about?” Tyrion Lannister asked slowly.

Dany half-turned to see the dwarf’s eyes moving slowly between Tarly and Jon Snow.

For the first time, the lame Lord Stark stirred from his place beside his oldest sister. Those far-seeing eyes fixed on Dany and she found herself feeling uncomfortable in that gaze. His voice was curiously detached when he spoke. “Jon is your nephew. He is the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and my aunt, Lyanna Stark. Our father took him in after Aunt Lyanna died, raised him as his own to hide him from Robert Baratheon…and to give him a family.”

For a moment Dany stared at him, numbly taking in Missandei’s sharp intake of air next to her, Jorah’s loud protestations, Tyrion’s rapid questions, and the triumph lingering in Samwell Tarly’s eyes.

The Northern lords were beginning to shout again, and Dany couldn’t look away from Brandon Stark. Even Varys couldn’t explain to her what the boy did, but everyone agreed that there was something _other_ about him.

“That’s impossible,” she whispered, not sure whether she was trying to convince herself or those around her. There was a numbness creeping through her, a sense of unreality, as she realized that Jon must have known the whole time, must have walked into her throne room laughing at her, and had slept with her in order to take her birthright away from her.

“A Targaryen!” boomed the astonished, and angry, Lord Royce from behind Dany. “I refuse to bow before anymore Targaryens.”

“He is just as much Stark as he is Targaryen,” Lady Stark was arguing, finally seeming to lose her composure. Two spots of color hovered high on her cheekbones.

“Only on his mother’s side,” came the voice of a pompous lord Dany didn’t know. “Lord Mazin,” Missandei whispered in his ear.

“Excuse me?” demanded Arya Stark, from her place along the wall.

“A Stark is a Stark,” another elderly, bearded man called out, glaring at Lord Mazin. Dany felt annoyance at so many bearded men. They all looked and sounded the same to her, with their thick, nigh-impenetrable northern accents and their general belligerence.

“Lord Manderly, ruler of White Harbor,” Tyrion hissed, and Dany finally turned to look over in his direction, and towards Jon Snow behind him. The king in the North looked defeated, shoulders slumped, as he stared numbly at the floor while the chaos erupting around him. Tiny Lady Mormont was on her feet now, demanding to know if whether the fact her mother had been Lady Mormont before her and not her father, made her, Lyanna Mormont, any less the rightful ruler of Bear Island.

Lady Karstark, as red of hair as Lady Stark, had formed an unlikely alliance with Ser Harrold Hardying, newly arrived from the Vale, and was vigorously yelling at the corpulent Lord Royce.

The Stark soldiers, Vale knights and Unsullied shifted uneasily and Dany could see various servants and smallfolk congregating in open doorways and down hallways in order to find out what exactly was going on amongst the lords.

Ghost stood up and howled.

Dany clenched her hands into fists, heart hammering in her ears as she stared at Jon Snow’s bowed head. He had betrayed her. They had all betrayed her. This had been a trap, a trap to take her rightful throne away from her.

“Your Grace,” Missandei said, from very far away, tugging on Dany’s arm. “Your Grace.”

All Dany could hear was the pounding of blood in her ears.The dragons screamed from high above and the Mother of Dragons called them down to her. She would burn the roof right off this paltry hovel and show these pathetic lords exactly who she was. She would leave not one stone of Winterfell standing and she would burn every last bit of snow from the ground in her wake.

The Dragons came.

…and then…

…they stopped.

And there was silence.

Dany reached out to them again. She could feel them, Drogon and Rhaegal, and they answered her as always, but there was an element of confusion to their mental landscape as though there was…someone else there with them. Someone else instead of Dany giving them orders.

Dany’s eyes widened, and she remembered the crows and ravens which covered every turret in Winterfell – their caws deafening and eerie – and which served as the eyes and ears of Lord Brandon Stark. Supposedly. Varys had been skeptical, but he hadn’t been skeptical enough for Dany’s peace of mind.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, but Brandon Stark’s eyes had turned white and he didn’t answer her.

She took a sharp, furious step forwards. “Release my dragons,” she commanded, fury coursing through her strong enough that whatever hold this…this _Stark_ , had on her children wavered and almost broke.

_How dare he! How dare any of them!_

She would show them. She would burn every last one of them.

Her rage coursed through her like wildfire, heading and powerful, and her children screamed again, circling downwards from the sky.

The giant white direwolf got smoothly to its feet, teeth barred in a growl as it began to prowl towards Dany.

Arya Stark moved from her place along the wall, quick as a shadow, until she stood before the High Table and faced Daenerys. Her hands were blatantly on her weapons, Ghost moved to stand at her side, and Dany felt Jorah and Grey Worm stir uneasily behind her. Her concentration on Drogon and Rhaegal broke, and the dragons fell silent once more, circling back up into the sky.

The girl Stark’s eyes were cold, and as intent as a wolf’s. For the first time Dany understood the comparison between these Starks to the wolves they took as their sigil. The wolf girl before her was more wild urchin than civilized girl-woman.

“You have made threats against every single remaining member of my family,” the Stark girl said. Her voice was as emotionless as Sansa Stark’s was cold. She fingered the hilt of her Valyrian steel dagger without once taking her eyes from Dany. “Perhaps no one informed you,” the girl said, still in that inflectionless tone, “but I trained in Braavos with the Faceless Men, who learned their craft from the slaves who escaped Valyria.”

Leather whispered, and steel clanked as armored men and women shifted in their places. Jorah’s and Grey Worm’s hands clenched their own weapons, and the Unsullied who stood along the back of the hall made to move their spears into position.

Arya Stark stood protectively before Lady Stark and the lame, white-eyed sorcerer who held Dany’s dragons in thrall. Her eyes didn’t move towards any of Dany’s men, but the dragon queen had no doubt she knew the position of every single one of them. The white direwolf growled once more and Dany knew it would rip out her throat before she could call her dragons to her.

“I was trained to kill Targaryens. If any harm comes to my family, or if you try to conquer the North by force…no matter where you run, nowhere will be safe. I am no one…and everyone.”

Dany knew enough about the Faceless Men to realize that this was no idle threat. She had read stories of the slaves in Valyria who learned enough of magic to fight their dragonrider overlords. Not even Valyria at the height of its power, had even been able to conquer Braavos. Thanks to the Faceless Men.

She turned without another word and walked out of the Hall. Jorah followed her, but Missandei remained behind, holding back Grey Worm with a light touch of her slender fingers. Tyrion Lannister didn’t move from his position on the bench in the Great Hall.

The Targaryen queen found herself heading for the godswood.

It was hard to imagine herself as ever being Lady of Winterfell when she was here. This place seemed to belong entirely to the Starks. She looked around the godswood, at the trees standing tall like sentinels armored in their grey-green needles, at the towering oaks, the stately hawthorn, the ash and soldier pines, but mostly she stared at the heart tree, pale as her hair with a blood-red face; a giant from a lost time. The place felt old, ancient even, earthy and brooding, the smell of centuries, and it was dark even now at midday. She had never felt so out of place anywhere as she did here. This wood was Winterfell, and it belonged to Jon Snow. And to Lady Stark. But not to her.

Distantly she wondered if her brother, Rhaegar, ever stood here with Lyanna Stark and felt as she did; that she might love a Stark, but she would never be one.

The crunch of footsteps on crisp, new-fallen snow alerted her to the fact that she was no longer alone. She turned, knowing she looked ethereal, a pale snow maiden with hair as white as snow itself.

Jon came towards her, snowflakes in his beautiful, dark hair, his dark, elegant clothes which befitted a king, and that cloak he wore clasped at the center with two silver direwolves, facing each other, and proudly proclaiming his allegiance to House Stark.

He was beautiful, she realized, as beautiful as all the stories said Rhaegar was. He might have Lyanna’s coloring, but he had Rhaegar’s looks. She could see it now, and gods she wished she couldn’t. She still had no idea how it could be true, but she knew that it was.

She could see Jorah standing some distance away from them, refusing to leave her alone in this place but trying to give her and Jon some privacy. Jon’s giant white direwolf, Ghost, felt no such reserve and took position at the Stark king’s side.

“You lied to me.”

Jon shook his head. “No.”

She laughed. “You’re a Targaryen. And you knew it.”

“I had no idea before a fortnight ago.”

She laughed. It wasn’t a happy laugh. “You expect me to believe that.”

He stepped forward and took her cold hands in his own, gloved ones. “Dany,” he said, soft voice lingering over her nickname in the way that she loved.

She snatched her hands away from him. “You lied to me. You betrayed me!”

Drogon landed beside her, crushing ancient trees beneath his vast girth like they were dry twigs from the last days of summer. He roared his defiance at the northern king and to his credit, Jon Snow did not flinch.

Dany had half a mind to let Drogon eat him. That would solve all her problems at once.

Before she could decide one way or the other, Rhaegal landed behind Jon’s back. To Dany’s complete shock, the smaller green dragon stood protectively over the Stark king – no, her nephew, the Targaryen heir, the rightful king of the Seven Kingdoms – and screamed right back at Drogon.

Dany knew that scream, knew that Rhaegal had – at some point in time that Dany would never know – bonded with Jon. And now, one of her children would fight to the death against the other in order to protect Jon Snow. It was that fact, more than anything else, which convinced Daenerys that Jon Snow was indeed a Targaryen.

She couldn’t look at him. She stared at her beloved Rhaegal instead, the little one not that Viserion was gone. No wonder Drogon had been so taken with Jon back at Dragonstone. “What’s your real name?” she whispered.

“Jon Snow,” he answered after a long moment. “But my birthname, the one my mother gave me, was Aegon Targaryen.”

She wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all and scream in frustration at this cruel twist of fate. Aegon the Conqueror. The Targaryen line had never been meant to carry on through her…but through him. She had been an afterthought, a throw away, with no real destiny at all.

_No,_ she reminded herself. _I am the Mother of Dragons. Not even Aegon Targaryen did that. I have never been nothing._

“I never meant to hurt you,” Jon said, and Dany came back from her dark thoughts to watch the play of emotions across his face.

“We are the watchers on the wall,” Jon Snow murmured, staring beyond Dany at something only he could see. He came back from his own dark thoughts and met her gaze again. “I thought when I died, the vow I gave before the heart tree was finished, but I was wrong. I gave my life in service to the realm…and that promise still holds.” His jaw firmed. “Before all others.”

Dany stared at him in disbelief. “What does that have to do with anything?” she demanded.

“I’m sorry I let you believe I was in love with you,” Jon said seriously, his dark eyes so sincere that she wanted, desperately, to believe him. “I would have tried to love you.” And that hurt worst of all. Jon stared at her firmly and there was no regret in his eyes. “But I am a brother of the Night’s Watch and my duty is to the realm, to the _people_ who make up the realm. And I would do whatever was necessary to save as many of them as possible. I knelt to you and promised to marry you and would have kept that oath, not to take your throne but to gain your help in any way I could in order to save the _realm_.”

“The best way to secure an alliance is through marriage. You know that as well as I do.”

_And who told you that?_ She wondered, but she already knew. Tyrion had been so concerned for her of late, so disapproving of her actions. And Jon Snow would have been the perfect leash to place around her neck. Tyrion and his Starks. Numbly she wondered if everyone she’d ever cared for would betray her trust in the end.

Jon took her hands in his. “I am the shield that guards the realms of men,” he said, and it felt like they were having two different conversations.

She knew his words were words from the Night’s Watch Oath. She had just never expected anyone to actually believe them, to _live_ them. Men held to honor when it was convenient, and nothing she had experienced in her life had convinced her otherwise.

“You betrayed my trust,” she said quietly, hating that it hurt. She looked around – at Jon Snow, at Ghost, silent guardian at Jon’s side, at Ser Jorah watching from under the snow-covered trees, at Lord Tyrion coming towards her through snowdrifts as high as he was on those short legs of his – and remembered. _Three treasons will you know,_ she heard once more the words of the prophecy. _Once for blood, and once for gold, and once for love._ They had all betrayed her in some way for love. She hated the word. Jon Snow had betrayed her for the army that followed her. Jorah for the home he longed to see. And Tyrion…Tyrion Lannister the Imp. His betrayal had been truly unexpected. He was in league with these Starks because he claimed to be concerned for her. Because he feared she was following in the footsteps of her father, the Mad King.

_The nerve of him._

“Is your trust, your pride, more important than the lives of our people?” Jon said, and for the first time Dany thought she saw him as he truly was – a deluded idealist. Like all these Starks.

She pulled her hands back, stung. “I can’t stay here,” she decided. “I won’t stay.” His surprise, the sudden concern, in those dark eyes of his would have warmed her a bit if the sudden wariness in them hadn’t been stronger than anything else. “Take my army,” she spat, “since it’s all you cared for.” She stepped back, away from all of them. “My dragons and I will take back the Seven Kingdoms on our own. All I need is them.”

Jorah made a sudden movement towards her and Tyrion opened his mouth, both no doubt to argue against her. But she was done with men, and with men’s decisions. She spun towards them. “I will live and die on my own terms,” she snarled at them. “Cersei Lannister will try and destroy what you are building up here anyway. If I remain with you, she will stab us both in the back.”

 

***

 

Rhaegal wasn’t going with her. He was staying with Jon.

Dany sat on the bench in the godswood and stared at the frozen lake. There was peace and quiet here, a chance to clear her head. She was ready to leave. She would take the Dothraki but the Unsullied would stay here. Grey Worm had decided, and the others had agreed with him. She wouldn’t take anyone else. Not Jorah, not Tyrion, not Varys. Not even Missandei, who belonged with Grey Worm and shouldn’t have to choose between her love and her queen.

But Cersei Lannister was hers. King’s Landing was hers. With, or without, Jon Snow.

She didn’t notice when Sansa Stark settled on the bench beside her until the other woman spoke. “You don’t have to leave. This is your home. You’re Jon’s family…and that makes us yours.”

Dany shook her head. “I can’t stay.” How could she explain to Sansa Stark, who had always had a family who loved her, that all Dany had ever known was the quest for the Iron Throne?

“You can choose your own path,” Sansa said. “We need you here. With us.”

Dany shook her head again. The Dothraki wouldn’t be of any use in the cold. The Unsullied would adapt, but not the Dothraki. She would take them with her. “How did you get the Northern lords to not string Jon up alive for being a Targaryen?” she asked after a while, her voice a hoarse croak.

Sansa didn’t look at Daenerys as she replied. “I offered them a compromise. Lyanna Stark’s son would marry Ned Stark’s daughter. None of them could find a way to claim that together we weren’t Starks.” There was a hint of humor in her tone. Dany looked over and saw a tiny smile hovering at the corner of cold Lady Stark’s lips. For a moment she looked as mischievous as a girl.

“Well done,” she murmured, surprised to find that she actually meant it. It had been a clever political move. She turned back out towards the frozen lake, mirroring the other woman. “Could you actually marry your brother?” She could have never married Viserys, duty or no.

“I was a little girl when I saw him last,” Sansa murmured, “and my lady mother never encouraged me to view him as a brother.” She thought for a moment. “Perhaps that was for the best. We will find a way to make it work.” Sansa eyed Dany sideways. “As he would have with you.”

“I still can’t stay,” Dany said firmly. “I will take back what is mine.”

Sansa turned and stared at her then. “I understand,” she said simply. “I offer you another choice, as Jon did – a chance to fight a war that truly matters – but I understand that you can’t turn away.”

Dany didn’t know how that could be true.

“I never had magic,” Sansa explained, “or a special destiny. My wolf was killed before she could provide any sort of protection, and I learned the hard way how to survive without allies, without assets, and with everyone wanting to use me to claim my home. But I did survive, and now here I stand, and Winterfell belongs to House Stark once more.” The was a hardness to Sansa’s face, a fierce resolve in her voice, that Dany wouldn’t have guessed at from her lady-like presence and courteous manner. Where the dragon queen’s temper burned cities to the ground, Sansa Stark’s self-control was strong enough to endure anything in order to wait for the right moment. She supposed, loath though she was to admit it, that Sansa’s courage and strengths were different from hers…but no less powerful.

It was a humbling lesson. She turned and looked up to watch the snow fall on Lady Stark’s fiery-red hair. “Fire and Ice,” she said, wonderingly. “Targaryen and Stark.” Is that what my brother saw, she thought, when he looked at Lady Lyanna? The fulfillment of a prophecy? Or had he actually loved her?

_He is the Prince that was Promised. His is the song of ice and fire_ , she heard him whisper from her vision in the Houses of the Undying. She had a feeling she would have loved her oldest, brilliant, enigmatic brother. Just as she loved his son. “You’ll take care of him, won’t you.” And it wasn’t a question.

Jon didn’t love her, or at least not in the way she wanted. But she remembered the black-armored prince, festooned in rubies, as he fell before a Warhammer by the banks of the Trident. She remembered him sinking into the river and with his last breath he breathed a woman’s name.

And she hoped.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And Dany decides to strike out on her own. 
> 
> So, it was a bit tricky getting Daenerys from the point where her arrogance led into rage and dragon fire, and then to back down enough for her to talk civilly to Sansa. And this chapter ended up being even longer than I predicted, as a result. She’s a difficult character to get right because of her complexity and I had a lot of fun writing this chapter. Her pride is blinding her, and where Jon sees only the good of the realm and his duty to the realm, not having been raised with Jon’s strong sense of duty towards others over self, she sees only her perceived right and the betrayal she feels when others don’t agree with her. A bit like Anakin Skywalker. She has had quite a journey, hasn’t she? What did you think?
> 
> Oh, and in this version, Dany is Nissa Nissa to Jon’s Azor Ahai. He betrays her like the prophecy says (in her eyes anyway), but she also bears her breast – metaphorically, by giving her armies to him – and it grants him the power – the sword – to wage war against the Others. In my version anyway. 
> 
> Ugh, I wanted to include Howland Reed and his verifying Jon as Lyanna and Rhaegar’s son, and Edmure Tully offering his allegiance to House Stark over House Targaryen, a cameo from Jaime Lannister at the end, more Daenerys and Missandei interaction, and more interplay between the Northern lords, but this chapter took so long to write as it was, that I just can’t bear to try and squeeze any more into it!
> 
> I also had a lot of fun writing Dany’s and Sansa’s interactions. I tried to make it political – two rulers squaring off – instead of having it just be about Jon Snow. He’s important to them both, but Game of Thrones has always been a show about relationships in all forms – and mostly not romantic ones – and how those relationships are changed by having/acquiring power. The family aspect, Stark vs. Targaryen, appealed to me more than any sort of love triangle. 
> 
> Personally, I don’t think Dany is really in love with Jon, although I do think she loves the idea of him. And I think Jon would have been willing to work on a relationship with her, if she didn’t turn out to be his Aunt, and he wasn’t in love with his sister/cousin. Like Anakin and Padmé from Star Wars, they didn’t have enough time together to really learn about each other and are, moreover, inherently incompatible. It’s like a dream for Dany and a political necessity for Jon. Thoughts, anyone? Please keep them clean and polite, or I’ll just delete them. Thanks.
> 
> Up next, Jaime Lannister arrives at Winterfell and Jon learns that the Wall has fallen.


	4. The Lion of Lannister

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “By what right does the Wolf judge the Lion?”
> 
> Jamie Lannister was a far-cry from the boy who joined Aerys Targaryen’s Kingsguard all those years ago. Then he had dreams of valor before him and the likes of Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, and Rhaegar Targaryen, the Last Dragon, to live up to. Life had taken away his faith in such naïve institutions as justice and honor, and the fate of the Starks had only reinforced the fact that in the real world life was cruel, the gods ruthless and only the strong prevailed. 
> 
> But Jon Snow, Ned Stark’s bastard, might be just enough to restore a little of what he’d lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t own anything from Game of Thrones. Thank you so much for all the interest in this story. It has been a great experiment and challenge balancing the book characters, show characters and where I think the show could go, and I’ve really enjoyed writing this. There will be an Epilogue from Sansa’s POV after the end of this chapter, set several months after the series ends. Hopefully, it will be finished before Game of Thrones comes back in April.

The Lion of Lannister

 

A frigid breeze blew off the Trident and Tumblestone Rivers, where they met in a froth of foam and encircled the tall and nigh-impregnable walls of Riverrun, traditional seat of House Tully.

Jaime Lannister sat his fidgety warhorse and contemplated the leaping trout on a red and blue shield that once more flew over the ramparts of the fortress. It had been many weeks since he had left Cersei and Kings Landing, since the first snows began to fall in the south, and he was no closer to reaching Winterfell than he had been at the start, but he could not say that the time had been ill-spent. Lord Edmure Tully once again commanded the Riverlands, whose burned and ravaged lands and scattered people were once again free of Lannister control and slowly being united in purpose.

When word had reached Edmure that his nephew and nieces once more held the North and that they faced an impossible foe now that the Wall had fallen, the Lord of Riverrun’s duty had been clear. ‘Family, Duty, Honor,’ were their words, and now what forces the depleted and war-torn Riverlands could muster were gathered in the plains surrounding Riverrun and in final preparation for a hard march North to join House Stark in facing this new foe.

Given their pace and his own restless nature, Jaime highly doubted they’d get there in time to do any good. Like as not, they’d arrive to find the castle a ruin, the smallfolk dead, and the remaining Starks turned into White Walkers or other such rot.

He stared at the stone walls again, once more comparing their stout, plain appearance with those further south. The lush, peaceful lands below the Trident, their rolling, green hills and gently, tumbling brooks, made the large, palatial castles there a thing of beauty and a sign of wealth and prestige. Up here, such a palace would look ridiculous. This part of the Riverlands, well used to attacks from the Ironborn, built fortresses instead of castles and palaces. They were used to hard work, deprivation and constant setbacks. Not for the first time did he wonder how the people of the Reach, the Arbor, Dorne and the Crownlands would have coped with the constant warfare the Riverlands had seen in the past decade.

He suspected not half so well.

Another icy breeze wailed over the grey, choppy waters of the twin rivers and dug through his cloak, armor and smallclothes. He shivered and wondered exactly how cold it was in the North if even the Riverlands was covered in drifts of snow, the bare trees of its forests festooned in icicles, and its smaller rivers already frozen solid.  

A horn sounded on the plains before the castle walls, soon taken up by another and then another. Sitting in Riverrun’s outer courtyard, the bustle of knights, men-at-arms, archers and servants a constant hum around him, Jaime could see across the lowered wooden bridge the thousands of men, and even many women, who were slowly gathering together in some type of orderly formation under the stern, watchful eyes of sergeants and commanders and, even more importantly, their yelling.

Ravens flew overhead, sending out messages to every keep in the Riverlands and ordering them to muster what men and supplies they had and march North towards Winterfell. Only a bare bones contingent would stay to guard the Riverlands themselves. Jaime had counseled against this approach, wary that Cersei and Daenerys Targaryen, now engaged in open warfare against each other in the Crownlands, might seize this opportunity to take the undefended keeps of the Riverlands. Cersei was their father’s daughter after all; she would not allow such a prime opportunity to go to waste.

But he had been overruled by Lady Roslyn Frey Tully.

The girl had certainly grown a spine since the death of almost all her male relatives, and her assumption to the position of acting Lady of Riverrun. “We will remain,” she informed him shortly, indicating the many women, both noble and commoner, who were gathered in the Hall. “And our lands will still be ours when you return.”

Jaime, staring around at those elegant, beautiful or small feminine figures, unused to fighting, protected always by their menfolk, had been deeply skeptical, but saw no point in belaboring the issue. The Riverlands were not his concern any longer, only the enemy that moved down from beyond the Wall was.

Now, Lady Roslyn walked down the ice-covered stone steps from the main keep, snow drifting down and settling in her pale brown hair and the warmly swaddled babe in her arms. Lord Edmure bent down from his own warhorse, a magnificent bay, and kissed her square on the mouth before brushing leather-clad fingers over the cheeks of his infant son. The elder son, his first child, toddled behind its mother, one hand firmly clasped in that of his Septa.

Two sons, when old Walder Frey, the gods spit upon his black soul, now had none. Perhaps there was some justice in this benighted world after all.

“Winter came for House Frey,” the smallfolk in the Riverlands said about the matter – the complete destruction of an entire House a little over a year past already – when asked, and their eyes looked North when they did so. Jaime thought the words no more than a saying, brought on by the advent of snow and freezing weather, but he had dreamed of Robb Stark last night, the one they still called the Young Wolf here, and the words the previous King in the North had sent to his father during the War of the Five Kings.

_Tell Lord Tywin that Winter is coming for him._

He had always thought the words of the Great Houses empty boast, nothing more, for all that every Lannister compared themselves to a lion and put blasted lions on everything they owned. It was certainly the case for the other houses, but he was not so sure about House Stark any longer. Send them south and they ended up betrayed and murdered – he could still hear the screams of Brandon Stark in his nightmares – but as winter came, they grew ever stronger.

Jon Snow, standing in the dragon pit outside of Kings Landing in that ridiculous fur-lined cloak of his, had been completely different from the sullen bastard boy he remembered from Winterfell all those years ago. The King in the North had been clear-eyed, battle-scarred and filled with a burning, righteous anger that Jaime could feel even from several feet away. He was a man to watch and a man to respect.

He remembered Robb Stark and his giant wolf standing before him as he’d been a prisoner of the Starks; the cold fury and single-minded purpose which radiated off the Stark king. The boy king who had been the greatest commander of all those in the War of the Five Kings; more daring than Stannis, more innovative than Tywin Lannister, more righteous than Renly.

He wondered how differently the war would have gone had Jon Snow and not Robb Stark’s Tully relatives and the traitorous Roose Bolton been beside him. He suspected that the two Stark boys would have taken the entirety of the Seven Kingdoms between them.

He wondered what the other Starks, the lame boy he’d pushed from the window and the two daughters, were like now. He vaguely remembered Lady Sansa as a pale, silent, vaguely pretty girl with the personality of a wet limpet, but the other two he could not recall at all.

Unwillingly he though again of Cersei’s children…his children; cruel, twisted Joffrey, murdered so terribly, Tommen who had been manipulated and controlled his whole life, until death was the only way out, and sweet, stubborn Myrcella, who had been the best of them all, and yet poisoned in the games of people who should have been protecting her.

He stopped himself before he could wonder about the babe still in Cersei’s womb – if it had died there, if it was a boy or a girl, if she would even tell it his name. A part of him, a part he had thought long dead and gone, hoped it was a girl as beautiful as Cersei, with the ability to defend herself as well as Brienne of Tarth, the proud warrior woman he still counted as a friend.

He hoped that one day, if he made it through this war, he might see the child, whoever it turned out to be, and tell it he loved it, no matter what.

Unwillingly he looked back over at Lord and Lady Tully again, watching Edmure’s proud form as he swung back upright in his saddle and raised a gloved fist. At his command the rest of the knights and men-at-arms mounted. Lady Roslyn’s hair blew in the breeze, streaming out around her in a silky halo, and her skits whipped out as well. There were tears on her cheek, but her chin was raised high and she looked proud and firm as she watched her lord give the command.

Edmure road out from Riverrun and did not look back. His household thundered over the bridge behind him. Lady Roslyn and her two sons stayed until he vanished from sight, and she met Jaime’s eyes as she turned away. A look was all they shared, but Jaime nodded at her, a silent promise. _I will keep your husband alive if I can,_ he swore to her.

He had been the cause of too much death in his life. Perhaps he could make some of it right by keeping the remaining members of Lady Catelyn’s family alive; she had given him his life back after all, even if that had not been her intent, and something was owed her memory in return.

It was Brienne who had found her daughters and was now protecting them. Jaime would have to walk his own path.

He turned away from Riverrun at last, kicked his horse’s flanks, and they were off, pounding over the bridge, the snow-crusted fields and into the woods to the north, heading towards Winterfell and his long-awaited foe.

***

He dreamed of Cersei at night; the golden shine of her hair, the flashing green of her eyes, that smile she reserved only for him. He had felt admiration for other women at times, even appreciated their beauty, but Cersei was the only woman he had ever desired. She had been since they were children; fierce and willful and dangerous even then, like a wild horse, or a sudden storm, or a battle. Most times he didn’t know whether she wanted to kiss him or kill him, and the uncertainty had always been an aphrodisiac greater than anything else except a straight-up fight ever was.

She was his queen, his other half, his…. she was _his._ And she always would be. Even though he now feared the paths she chose to walk.

He woke shivering, his fur-lined cloak still not sufficient to block the cold. There wasn’t enough time to make camp at night, not at the pace Edmure wanted to keep, and so they slept under the stars, or a sky filled with snow-clouds, and wrapped themselves in leather and fur, huddled together to keep from freezing to death. Around him the men on watch kept the fires roaring, bawdy songs being sung by those who were drunker than they were supposed to be. But they were going off to war, the last war, and no one begrudged them the liquid courage they found in ale and the last of the summer wine.

The taste of Cersei’s mouth still lingered on his lips.

He staggered up and wandered over to the nearest fire. No one huddled close to him for warmth at night; the Kingslayer was a pariah even among those going off to die together, and the group at the fire moved over hastily to leave a wide space for him.

A coarse-faced, middle-aged woman with gleaming dark eyes passed over her wineskin without comment though, before going back to her task of fletching more arrows. Jaime took a large swig, choking on the foul-tasting, fiery liquid to the great mirth of those around him.

The woman pounded him on the back, chortling, and accepted her foul brew back with a shake of her head.

“Any news?” he asked the men around him, his voice hoarse. Their faces gleamed ruddy and watchful in the firelight, and there was wariness as they gazed at him.  

“Aye,” one of them said, but no further words were forthcoming. The lone woman silently handed him her wineskin again. Jaime took another large swig, no longer minding the burning sensation down his throat, before he staggered up and away from them, in pursuit of Lord Edmure or his Maester; there was news and he was not going to like it.

 

***

 

He didn’t speak to anyone for the rest of the journey. Silent to the point of surliness, the ever-growing procession of those winding their way North left him alone. Alone with his memories and his demons.

_Your sister tried to burn Kings Landing down to the ground._

_Thousands are dead between dragon fire and wildfire._

_The queen has fled, or is dead, and Daenerys Targaryen now rules the ashes._

And the babe? He hadn’t asked. Part of him wished he had stayed by her side; they would have died together as they had lived together. But a larger part of him knew that he couldn’t have stood by to watch as his sister burned thousands alive. He had betrayed his honor all those years ago, his word, his oath, anything that mattered, to stop Mad King Aerys from burning that cursed city down; to save those people.

He wouldn’t have been able to watch Cersei do the same thing now, but he wouldn’t have been able to kill her either.

Around him the winds whipped, the snow continued to fall, and at night the wolves howled. Every Keep they passed since cross the Neck was deserted and the silence was oppressive. They saw no one; no smallfolk, no Stark soldiers, and no wights.

Jaime began to long for even a White Walker to appear; he preferred a straight-up fight to all this creeping along and waiting for the worst to happen. Yet nothing did; there was only the silence, the vast emptiness of the North, the cold, harsh landscape that stretched for hundreds of miles in all directions and seemed incapable of supporting any kind of life at all.

One day, a fortnight’s journey north along the Kingsroad from Moat Cailin, Edmure Tully pulled up beside him. He looked gaunt beneath his furs, the Northern cold hard even on a Riverlands man. They road together in silence for a long while. Winterfell was no more than a day’s journey away and it seemed that not a soul remained in all the North.

Jaime had felt eyes watching him from the shadowy trees now for days; watchful, unfriendly eyes. And he remembered the old stories of the North his Septa used to tell him and Cersei and Tyrion in the nursery, with their trees that could see everything and the giants that still roamed the mountains. He had given no credence to the stories when he’d grown, but then he’d never believed in White Walkers or an army of the dead either. Or even in dragons for all that Robert had continuously showed off their skulls like he had personally killed any of them, and Aerys had decorated his Hall with their remains.

“Do you think anyone is left?” Lord Tully asked after a while.

They shared a strange bond, these two men who had been divided by war and family their entire lives; somehow connected by the life of a woman they’d respected.

A wolf howled again, a long way away.

Jaime shrugged, his frozen leather cracking as he did so. He was chilled through to his bones and vaguely wondered if he would ever get warm again. Tyrion had once told him that the men on the Wall soon forgot the memory of warmth, that winter lived in their bones. What a grim, inhospitable place the North was if even the summer was like this, and now that winter had come, he could not imagine any reason people would stay here.

He shrugged again, bringing his mind back to Edmure’s question. “If they are or aren’t, it doesn’t matter. We came here to fight White Walkers; better here than down South.”

Edmure nodded but looked around unsurely at the silent, white, snow-covered world that surrounded the marching army. This place was alien to them both. Perhaps a Stark would feel at home here, but they did not.

“My Uncle would say,” Edmure said quietly, “that only a fool fights on territory he does not know.”

Jaime’s laugh was a harsh, rasping thing and surprised them both. “No matter where we fight them, we’ll be on unfamiliar territory.”

A wolf howled again, closer this time, and Jaime’s horse whinnied uneasily. Lord Patrek Mallister cantered up, his armor emblazoned with the silver eagle on a purple field the denoted his House, reining in his horse and showering them in a shower of snow. “Wolves, milord,” he panted. “They’re getting closer.”

Lord Tully looked around him uneasily. They had been lucky with wolves so far, the size of their caravan more than enough to deter even the large, ravenous bands that roamed the lands encased in winter. But if these wolves were starving….

Jaime had heard the rumors that plagued the Riverlands, of a huge she-wolf that prowled the lands, leader of a pack that numbered in the hundreds. “Move the caravan together,” he ordered Lord Mallister firmly. “I want the pikemen reinforced by archers surrounding the entire damn thing five minutes ago.”

Lord Mallister briefly hesitated, looking to his overlord for confirmation, and when Edmure nodded, he turned his horse and galloped off southwards, shouting orders up and down the extended line of soldiers. Lord Tully shook his head worriedly as another wolf howled, this time coming from the south. “We’re too spread out,” he said, “we’ll never make it in time.”

“Yes, we bloody well will,” Jaime snapped, kicking his horse’s flanks, he began galloping northward towards the front of the line, shouting exhortations and curses as he went. His armor might be plain and dull, typical northern wear, but his golden hair and proud bearing still gave away that he was a Lannister, a lion of the south, the Kingslayer, and his reputation preceded him. Men and women hurried faster, getting in line despite the cold that seeping in their bones and the tiredness of weeks of hard marching.

Wolves howled on all sides as Jaime pulled up at the front of the line, Edmure hard on his heels. The Kingsroad lay before them, empty and silent, entirely covered in huge drifts of snow that moved in the harsh, northern wind. Shapes moved through the bare trees on all sides, fast, swift-footed shapes. Jaime could not follow them with his eyes, but he knew there were more wolves than there he had ever seen in one place before.

“Hold the line!” Edmure Tully shouted, over the whinnying of frightened mounts and goats and sheep that the army had brought with them. The call was taken up by the other commanders and lords, with Lady Joslin Mooton of Maidenpool setting herself and her followers the task of protecting the baggage which housed their grain and stores.

The wolves howled, close and terrifying.

The snow fell from the leaden sky in soft drifts, limiting Jaime’s field of view to know more than a hundred paces in any direction. He squinted his eyes. Down the Kingsroad he could just make out a dark shape. The figure grew, darkening and massive through the white of the snow, and his he drew his sword, eyes widening as he beheld the largest wolf he’d ever sheen, twice the size of even Greywind, Robb Stark’s direwolf.

The grey wolf’s teeth were barred in a snarl and it prowled towards them in graceful, menacing silence.

Edmure drew in a shocked breath and someone behind Jaime cursed.

“Seven Hells,” Edmure breathed, “is that…..” He started forward and Jaime’s harsh exclamation to hold came too late.

Jaime had been so taken with the wolf that he’d failed to spot the smaller figure at its side; a very human figure. Now he could see it clearly, dressed in the brown and blue leathers of the northmen, a fur-lined cape attached over one shoulder, leaving the dominant hand free to swing the small rapier attached at the figure’s side.

It was a girl, a girl-woman, with shoulder-length dark hair pulled back in the Stark style traditionally worn by the men of that House. Her face was snow-white pale and her blue eyes blazed, while one hand was kept warningly on her sword. Her pale, cold eyes were fixed on Jaime.

“Arya?” It was Lord Edmure’s voice. He’d stopped several paces ahead of Jaime, plainly unsure of what his eyes were telling him. He’d also never met his niece, but the girl-woman before him was dressed in the colors of House Stark and she looked so like Lyanna, with that dark hair and the small, fine-boned features of her face, that she could be no one else.

She looked like Jon Snow, her half-brother.

Finally, the girl-woman took her unsettling eyes off Jaime and took in Edmure Tully, the red and blue of his raiment, the banners of the lords who road behind him. “Uncle Edmure,” she said, and Jaime knew he wasn’t imagining the sudden lessoning of tension in Lord Tully’s shoulders. She did not remove her hand from her sword. “Bran said that he’d seen you coming but was unsure when you’d arrive.” Her cold eyes swung back towards Jaime. “And he failed to mention in what company.”

Lord Edmure turned and looked back over at Jaime. The wolves had fallen silent but the Kingsalyer knew that they were still there. For a moment the world seemed to hold its breath. Jaime knew he was surrounded on all sides by people who had no cause to wish him well; Northmen and Rivermen and even some from the Vale of Arryn.

Arya Stark had been there when Jaime’s sister and son took Ned Stark’s head. There were rumors she’d been there when the Red Wedding took her mother and brother, her sister-in-law, and the unnamed Stark babe Talisa Stark had carried, as well. These had been none of Jaime’s doings, but he knew his golden hair marked him as a Lannister and he had done other, even worse, things.

He lowered his sword and, after a moment’s hesitation, sheathed it again. If he knew anything about Starks….

“I have come to offer my allegiance and service to your brother, Jon Snow. The King in the North.”

Her ice-blue were mistrustful and from the shifting of the men and women behind him he knew that his oath of allegiance counted for little in the minds of those who saw him only as a betrayer of both Aerys Targaryen and Robert Baratheon. “I ask that he decide my fate,” he continued and watched the rueful acceptance that stole over her countenance.

She nodded, only once. “My brother will judge your words,” she agreed, “but if you betray him, a death being torn apart by wolves will be the most merciful one I’d grant you.” She turned away. “Come, Winterfell is just over that ridge.” And she vanished into the falling snow, the wolves vanishing with her.

Jaime shivered and tried to hide it. He could see the hesitation even Edmure Tully had in following her. “Old blood flows in the Starks,” Jaime heard him mutter, before he raised a hand and ordered the army to continue.

Jaime wondered how even fierce, she-wolf Catelyn Tully had fared among these people, in which something other still ran. He wondered how she had ever fit in in a place so alien.

Jaime and Edmure crested the rise to find Winterfell in the distance, sprawling over the landscape, austere and magnificent, and what they saw made them gasp; all around the ancient fortress, spread in every direction, were hundreds of thousands of sturdy wooden and stone dwellings. Millions of people had gathered here, fleeing from all directions to reach Winterfell. Smoke rose from their chimneys, men and women called to each other and children played in the snow.

Armored northmen and knights of the Vale were everywhere, scouts keeping an eye on any sudden changes in weather, or the first sight of a wight. Despite the freezing cold, the grey skies, the frozen landscape, the implacable enemy before them, these sullen, dour people were…still alive. They were still living.

Eyes swung towards the army from the Riverlands as it crested the hill, people halting in their tasks of fetching water and wood, sharpening weapons, tending fires, roasting meets and the open cauldrons of stew and soup that sent enticing aromas everywhere.

Someone, Jaime knew, had planned brilliantly so that all of these people could be fed, despite the years of winter before them and the wars that had ravaged this place; someone with a keen talent for logistics.

Arya Stark and the largest of the wolves stood waiting for them. Jaime swung off his horse and walked up beside her. “This is…magnificent,” he told her, awestruck. There were so many people. He could not believe there were so many. There were more here than Kings Landing.

“This is my sister,” Arya Stark said, and there was pride in her voice. “And my brothers,” she added, as a contingent of guards wearing Stark armor rode down an open thoroughfare from the distant castle’s open gates. A dark-haired man in Stark armor rode at their head. Even from this distance, Jaime could tell that it was Jon Snow.

“Welcome,” Arya Stark said, “to Winterfell.”

 

***

 

Jaime was allowed to bathe and rest before being brought before the King in the North. He did not choose to hide himself as he stepped through the doors into the Great Hall. He was dressed, not in the white of the Kingsguard, to which he no longer held claim, but in the red and gold of House Lannister, as he had been all those years ago when he’d knelt before Rhaegar Targaryen and been knighted in the service of the realm and the king.

He had dreamed of Cersei again as he dozed in the bath, the warm water fed from Winterfell’s underground hot springs. He knew she wasn’t dead, he could feel her as he could always feel her. The emerald green of her eyes, that fall of golden hair; she had been all that he dreamed of for so long. Yet, as the warm waters surrounded him, he recalled the sad, resolute eyes of the Stark king, his fair face, the solemn cure of his mouth as he’d greeted Lord Tully and Jaime.

He had been on his way to conduct a sortie; wights had been spotted to the north-east. His great white wolf prowled at his side, and a horse had been brought for Arya, who had unhesitatingly mounted up on her brother’s right side.

“We shall talk when I return,” Jon Snow had said, his eyes on Jaime were not unkind. He had galloped off and the last Jaime had seen of him was the fall of his dark hair. He’d had to fight with himself not to demand to accompany them. He’d never fought a wight before, would be more hindrance than help with only one hand, and yet the king’s words had struck too close to home.

In the bath those sad eyes of the northern king merged into Prince Rhaegar’s violet gaze, his handsome, solemn face, the fall of that silver hair. His hand had been warm on Jaime’s shoulder, his eyes kind but far away as he’d taken his leave for what turned out to be the last time.

_When this battle is done, I mean to call a council. Changes will be made. I meant to do it long ago but… Well it does no good to speak of roads not taken. We shall take when we return._

He had never returned. Jaime had loved Rhaegar Targaryen, admired the Dragon Prince, would have followed him to the gates of Hell itself. Instead, he had let Elia’s babes be murdered, done nothing as Rhaegar’s wife was violated and killed as well. He had stayed by the side of his family, by Robert Baratheon, as they hunted Rhaegar’s younger brother and sister.

He had looked for Rhaegar;s likeness in his sister, Daenerys Targaryen but had not found him. The dragon queen was a conqueror like Aegon of old, but she did not possess Rhaegar’s wisdom, his gentle soul, the duty he’d felt towards the realm. Perhaps it was because she’d been raised by Viserys, trained in the cruel, nomadic ways of the Dothraki, but Jaime would not trade one ruthless monarch for another.

Daenerys Targaryen was great and glorious, but she was not a ruler he would die for. He wondered how old Ser Barristan Selmy had thought she was. Perhaps she had changed; it happened to them all.

Now he stepped into Winterfell’s Great Hall and took in the two seated figures at the head table. Along either side of the Hall wear wooden tables upon which sat the collective lords and ladies of the North, the Riverlands and the Vale. Candles flickered warm golden light around the massive room and outside all was dark and the snow fell. Night came early in this winter-bound place.

Across from him, seated in regal splendor, was Jon Snow and by his side sat a tall, beautiful, red-haired woman. She looked lovelier than Catelyn Stark had ever been, but Jaime knew that this must be her daughter, Sansa. Sansa Stark’s eyes were as coldly blue as Arya’s had been. Even now he could see the other two Stark siblings, standing and seated off to one side, but all his attention was fixed on the two figures before him.

Jon Snow stood as he approached, the direwolves emblazoned on his silver breastplate flickering in the candlelight, and his huge fur-cloak, ridiculous-looking in Kings Landing, giving him an air of majesty here in the North.

“Ser Jaime Lannister,” he said, his northern brogue pronounced. “Come forward.”

Jaime came and stood several paces away from the high table. He had had words prepared for this moment, about common enemies and united purpose and a promise that his word held some meaning. From the corner of his eye he thought he saw Brienne’s pale blonde hair and a small figure that might have been Tyrion, but he could not be sure and now was not the time to look. He remembered Ned Stark’s scorn when the northern lord had entered the Throne Room in the Red Keep and found him sitting in Aerys’ seat and braced himself for harsh words from the second of his sons.

A sudden flurry from behind interrupted him before he’d begun. A slightly worried-looking man in Maester’s robes hurried up and bent over Sansa Stark, handing her a rolled parchment with a red wax seal on it. “My queen,” she said, “my apologies but urgent word has come from Daenerys Targaryen.”

Jon glanced down at the woman by his side, even as Sansa Stark murmured her thanks, and Jaime felt shock course through him. Before he could sensor his loud mouth, the curse of the Lannisters, he said, “You married your sister!” It was an accusation. “So, it’s alright when a Stark does it, or even a Targaryen, but the gods and smallfolk curse Cersei and I for it.”

 Jon Snow’s dark eyes moved back to meet his and Sansa Stark’s as well, her eyes even icier than before. The silence in the Great Hall was deafening and in it, Jaime definitely heard Tyrion’s exasperated sigh.

“Yes, Sansa and I were married,” the King in the North said, “but she is not my sister.”

At this, the flame-haired northern queen stirred. “At least,” Jon Snow amended, “she is not biologically my sister.”

Jaime’s eyes moved between them, now confused. His gaze moved over towards Edmure, seated close to his nieces and nephew on one of the benches. The Tully lord grimaced but offered no explanation.

“Our father lied to protect me,” the king continued. He looked haunted.

Sansa Stark placed a hand on his, her gaze piercing Jaime like steel. “Jon was born as Aegon Targaryen,” she said, her clear, bell-like voice hitting Jaime hard, her words ringing through his head over and over. “He is the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and our aunt, Lyanna Stark. We are cousins.” _Like your parents were_ , she did not need to add.

But Jaime did not care about the impropriety of their match, the hypocrisy of the Starks and their constant judgment of him, any longer. He couldn’t take his eyes off Jon Snow and all he could think of was that there was no way this could be true, and yet he could not doubt it, that this Stark boy was actually Rhaegar’s son, not Ned’s.

He began to laugh, his voice almost hysterical, and could hear the notherners shifting menacingly, the sword hand of the younger Stark girl falling to her blade. He laughed until tears came to this his eyes and he had to wipe them away. “That devious shit,” he said, rueful and angry and strangely humbled all at once.

“Your father,” he explained at Jon Snow’s raised eyebrow. “Stark” he added as the eyebrow rose higher. “We were all so smug about his bastard. About you. The ‘honorable’ Ned Stark broke his word and betrayed his lady wife. The dirt in the closest, and he’d brought it home with him. Of course, no one could be as honorable as they claimed Ned Stark was, not even Ned Stark! For decades he was a small joke amongst us all and we didn’t even think to question his story, because of course everyone does something wrong. See, Ned Stark is the proof of it. It comforted us to know even he had been dishonorable.”

He shook his head and laughed harder. “And he knew it.” His laughter went on for several more moments before beginning to taper off. “He used it to protect you. The heir to the Iron Throne, in plain sight of his friend, Robert Baratheon. In front of Varys and Baelish and…my father. And no one saw a thing. That cunning old” – fox, he’d been about to say – “wolf,” he said at last.

It was a humbling thought to realize that Ned Stark had let his name be smeared, his honor questioned, his reputation humiliated in order to protect the life of his sister’s son. It was the kind of thing Jaime had always claimed he’d done in killing Aerys, but Ned Stark had not let one good deed, despised by the people of Westeros though it was, make him bitter. He’d gone on as he always had; as a good man. And he’d raised his sons, real and adopted, to follow in his footsteps.

Jaime dropped heavily to his knees, hearing the murmurs start up through the Hall and ignoring them. He knew what he had to do in this moment – what Ser Arthur Dayne would have done – and drew his sword, one half of Ned Stark’s own greatsword, holding it up above his head as he dropped his eyes to the stone floor.

“I served your father, Rhaegar, once long ago. He was…the best of the Targaryens; a man worth following to death and beyond.” He looked up and met the king’s dark, watchful eyes. “And I would have done so,” he said, and hoped that for once, just once, his word was believed.

Jon Snow nodded, but he did not interrupt. Jaime had seen but not realized the resemblance between Rhaegar and Jon, too taken as he had been by the Stark looks the boy had obviously inherited from his mother.

“I offer you my fealty, Jon Snow, son of Rhaegar Targaryen and son of Eddard Stark.” The Hall was eerily silent save for the howling of the winter wind. “I will shield your back and keep your counsel and give my life for yours if need be. I swear it by the old gods and the new.”

He could not look away from Jon’s gaze. Those dark eyes – so like Rhaegar’s and yet so very different – gave nothing away as he looked down at Jaime. Queen Sansa made to interject, say something to her husband and king, but Jon’s soft hand on the tips of her fingers forestalled her, like as not, objections.  

“And I vow,” the king said slowly, never looking away from Jaime, “that you shall always have a place by my hearth and meat and mead at my table. And I pledge to ask no service of you that might bring you dishonor. I swear it by the old gods and the new.”

And Jaime believed him.

“Arise, Ser Jaime of House Lannister,” Jon said, but Jaime remained on his knees.

“This sword is yours, my king. It was your father’s before you.” Widow’s Wail was a ridiculous name for a sword. Jaime didn’t mention it and hoped Jon would feel the urge to rename the blade.

Yet the king made no move to take the sword from the Kingslayer’s grasp. “It is yours,” he said, to the astonished murmurs in the Hall. “My father would say that you have earned it.” He did not specify whether it was Ned or Rhaegar to whom he was referring. Jaime decided that it might be nice to believe that both might think he had done something right this day; that perhaps he was on the right path at last.

“No get up,” Jon Snow said in that direct northern way Jaime thought he’d never get used to. “We have work to do and winter his here.”

And for the first time that he could remember, the Hall resounded with cheers for Ser Jaime Lannister, Kingslayer.

It was awhile before Jaime could escape the press of people in the Great Hall to escape outside. The queen, a far cry from the girl Jaime remembered, had been gracious, if still steely-eyed, and Brienne’s smile and hug were warm and welcoming. But it was his brother that Jaime most needed to see and, at the first opportunity, he fled the Great Hall in search of him.

Bonfires had been set up around Winterfell’s main courtyard and many people were still hard at work despite the rapidly approaching night. Guards patrolling the ramparts called down towards the sortie parties coming back and forth and horns occasionally blew, echoing the calls of wolves that seemed to encircle Winterfell.

Jaime could find no one who had seen his brother though until he came across Arya Stark seated along one of the walls, a blazing bonfire next to her, and three men Jaime did not know surrounding her. She was laughing at something a fierce, red-bearded man was describing, something definitely not fit for a lady’s ears as it involved both bears and bollocks, and the red-haired man was definitely a wildling from his attire. A younger man, broad-shouldered with piercing blue eyes that Jaime felt he had seen somewhere before, had an arm slung over her shoulder and was smiling tolerantly.

It was the older man, grizzled and with a hand that was missing several fingers, who saw him first. “If yer lookin’ for yer brother, he’s up there.” The man nodded towards a secondary level to the north. Jaime turned to look.

“Keeping an eye on that dragon I expect,” the red-headed man said, his action strange even compared to the northerners.

_They have a dragon?_ Jaime thought.

His surprise must have shown in his face because Arya rolled her eyes, for the first time looking her age. “Jon is a Targaryen after all,” she said, “and Rhaegal liked him better than…” she made a face. “Her.” A sudden dragon call sound, followed by a rush of wings, and Jaime almost flinched back as a huge, leathery winged beast flew so close past the walls that he could feel the air from its wings. There were cheers from the men-at-arms stationed along the ramparts.

Jaime could see to figures on its back, one with dark hair and one with flaming red.

“Jon’s taken Sansa riding,” Arya Stark explained, unnecessarily.

Jaime nodded to her, eyes moving back in wonderment at the sight of a dragon over Winterfell, before he nodded at the others and took his leave.

He found Tyrion along a quieter part of the walls – peeing off the edge.

“Some things never change,” he called, amused despite himself.

Tyrion didn’t even turn around at his approach, finishing his business and then zipping himself up before facing Jaime. “Why break with tradition,” he said, and although his eyes looked said his smile was genuine and Jaime dropped to his knees before him and embraced his little brother. The wind was quieter now and the snow had ceased falling for the moment. Even a few stars were visible in a purple-black sky.

“I’m glad you’re still alive. When I heard that Daenerys Targaryen flew south again, I worried you’d be going with her.”

Tyrion’s grip was a bit too tight on his tunic, but Jaime decided not to mention it. “She didn’t want me too,” the younger Lannister admitted. “Said I’d betrayed her too many times. Jorah went after her, and Varys.” He was stiff and avoided Jaime’s eyes when he pulled back.

“She was worried _you’d_ betray her?” Jaime asked, surprised. Tyrion’s service as Hand of the Queen had been sincere and exemplary as far as he’d been aware, as Cersei had been fond of expounding upon.

Tyrion Lannister’s eyes followed Jon Snow and his Stark queen as the two soared on dragonwings through the dark, winter sky. “Strange where we end up in life,” he mused at last, meditatively. They could hear Sansa’s delighted laughter as they swooped past again and Jaime could see Tyrion’s grin, his fond shake of the head, even in the gathering dusk.

“You’ve always been fond of the Starks,” Jaime said, half in accusation and half in comfort to his brother.

“I hold a special place in my heart for cripples, bastards and broken things,” Tyrion reminded him, and Jaime thought of Tysha and Shae, and even of Daenerys Targaryen and himself.

A cold wind blew from the North, icy in its promise. The Lannister brothers stood there, facing towards the oncoming darkness together. “Do you think we stand a chance?” Jaime asked at last.

The dragon – Rhaegal, Tyrion had informed him – had landed, and Sansa slid off its huge back to be greeted by a host of northern ladies while the king extended a hand to his other sister. Arya jumped up easily, grabbing Jon around the waist and yelling imprecations against him as Rhaegal jumped straight up into the air and took off like a shot.

The queen, her eyes following her siblings, saw Tyrion and Jaime standing together on the wall and she began to move towards them, a politician’s knack for spotting potential hearts to win in her regal gaze; Jaime had seen enough of them to know. It reminded him of Margaery Tyrell, and he was reminded that this Stark had been trained in the Southern court, not just in the Northern one.

Cersei was, surprisingly, right to be concerned about these Starks.

Tyrion was watching him with a knowing gaze. “Surprising, aren’t they?” he asked, sounding grudgingly amused at his brother’s expense.

Jaime shrugged. “I came here expecting to find….” He trailed off. He didn’t know anymore what he had expected, only that for the first time since leaving King’s Landing he felt a little something like hope.

 Tyrion watched Jon Snow fly past once more, the dragon calling and Jon’s direwolf, white as the snow, waiting patiently below. _Ice and fire,_ Jaime thought, remembering some of Rhaegar’s overhead talks with his first wife, Elia Martell. The flame-haired northern queen joined them and Tyrion turned to smile up at her.

“Yes brother,” he murmured, for Jaime’s ears alone. “I think we stand a very good chance indeed.”

 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had no idea that Edmure Tully was going to be such a large part of this story, but Jaime has had a lot to do with the Tullys of Riverrun and so I think it fits well with his character growth to aid Edmure and then journey with him north. His meeting with Arya and the wolves also came to me as I was writing it – the only thing I was certain of when starting this chapter was that I wanted to see Jaime arrive at Winterfell and realize that Jon Snow was Rhaegar Targaryen’s son – how would he respond given his complicated relationship with Rhaegar, as well as three generations of Stark men, and his derision of them but also this strange need he has for their approval, mixed with a constant search for his own lost honor – and to eventually have him talk with Tyrion again – and so everything else just flowed from that. 
> 
> And yes, I crafted Jaime’s scene before Jon to mirror Brienne’s before Sansa in Season 6. I liked the parallels.   
> Tyrion has also been on the periphery of the past two chapters, but I wanted to bring him back for the end. Strangely, in the show, the Lannisters became as much the main characters as the Starks, and I always adored complicated relationships between siblings. 
> 
> I think the ending was a bit rushed and too…sentimental? .... Probably. If, after reading it over later, I still think so I’ll edit it a bit, but here it finally is. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading! An epilogue set nine months later, will be coming eventually. It will feature Sansa’s POV, with Tyrion and Sam as main characters alongside her.


End file.
